Jumper 1 - Jumper (21 page)

I jumped to Stillwater, where I bought ibuprofen at a convenience store and washed it down with 7UP.

What am I going to do about Millie?

Sherry, Millie's roommate, answered the door. The expressions that her face went through when she recognized me told me volumes.

"Hang on a second," she said. She didn't ask me in. She didn't say hello or ask how I was doing. She pushed the door closed in my face.

The headache and the anger returned. When Millie opened the door, my face was red and my pulse was pounding in my ears. She looked scared.

"Davy, what are you doing here?"

I shrugged. "I need to talk to you. Since I'm not welcome inside, perhaps we could take a walk."

She swallowed. "I'm not sure I want to walk with you."

"Oh for Christ's sake!" She flinched and I went on in a quieter voice. "Sergeant Washburn didn't say I was violent, did he? Surely he would have told you if I was suspected of murder or something."

"How did you know...? Well, okay. I'll get my coat."

She joined me on the porch a minute later, her hands stuck deep in the pockets of her coat, her eyes remote, her face still.

I walked out to the street and she followed a few paces behind. We started slowly down the sidewalk. The sky was cloudy, the temperature right above freezing, and a thin mist, more than fog and less than rain, left surfaces slick and wet. I could smell woodsmoke.

She broke the silence first. "Why are you walking like that? Are you hurt?"

"I was lifting furniture. I overdid it a bit, but I was in a hurry."

"Right...."

Her tone of voice stung. "It's the truth!"

She turned her head sharply, her jaw set. "Ah, truth! That's an interesting subject. Let's talk about truth!"

I exhaled. "All right. Why don't we."

"Let's start with names, Mr. Rice, or should I call you Mr. Reece. What is your name?"

"Rice. I've never lied to you."

She jerked her head up, her mouth open. "Oh? And who do you lie to? Do you confine your lies to bank tellers? Are girlfriends exempt from lies?"

I lowered my head and repeated stubbornly, "I've never lied to you. Everything I've told you has been true."

She didn't believe me. "There's lying and there's lying. Do you know what lying by omission is? Do you know what lying by implication is? Why do the police want you? What did you do? Why did you keep it from me?"

"Because I wanted you to love me!"

She took a step back, the scared look on her face again.

"Because I wanted you to love me.... Oh, fuck it!" I stopped and stared up into the clouds, tears mixing with mist.

She looked away, unwilling to watch me. I stifled the tears, clenched my eyes shut, squeezed them out.

"What do you want?" I asked. "What can I do to make it all right?"

"You lied to me. You betrayed me. I told you what that means."

I shook my head, disbelieving. "You said that if you ever found that I lied to you, we were through. Is that what you want? Shall I just go away and never bother you again?"

She looked at me, her eyes narrowed, her mouth a thin, uncompromising line. "Yes."

I looked at her disgust, her anger, her hate, and I couldn't stand it.

"Good-bye, then."

Out of spite, then, while she watched, I jumped away, to escape, without thought, without direction. Then, on the floor of the Stanville Public Library, I curled up in a ball and cried and cried and cried.

I spent the night in my recliner, in the Stillwater apartment, my long leather coat as a blanket. There was no heat or light because I'd yet to have the utilities turned on. I had nightmares about Dad, when he'd hit me for crying. Millie was there, standing at the side and nodding at everything Dad said. I awoke in the gray of dawn, shivering, my back aching. I chose not to go back to sleep.

After putting on my shoes, I jumped to the landing outside my apartment door in Brooklyn. There was a fresh hasp and padlock locking the door and a sign that said, SEALED BY NYPD. FOR INFORMATION, CONTACT D. WASHBURN, 72ND PRECINCT.

I jumped to the bedroom. The bed was stripped, all the linens tossed in the corner. I cautiously checked the rest of the apartment.

At some point they'd realized that there was too much dead space between the kitchen and living room. They'd torn through the covered-up door of the money closet, but I knew there wasn't a thing to find in there.

The kitchen was a shambles, dishes stacked precariously on the counters. Several of them had been taken aside and dusted with fingerprint powder. The garbage had been dumped in the sink and examined closely.

I ignored the mess and began jumping items to the Stillwater apartment, sorting the pots and dishes into the cabinets. I was surprised to find they hadn't broken anything, but it didn't seem to matter.

Nothing seemed to matter.

Still, I handled each delicately glazed piece with reverential care, wiping the dust from it with a dish towel before consigning it to its place in the cabinet. I'd bought the dishes at the end of the summer with Millie's help. Mom had liked them very much.

By midmorning I'd transferred all the kitchen and bathroom stuff, as well as the bed and its frame. The only things left in the apartment that I had any interest in were the drapes and miniblinds, but I was sure the police were still waiting for me outside and I didn't want them to know I was in the apartment.

Back in Stillwater, I went through the motions of having the water, electricity, cable, and gas turned on. I also decided against starting a new bank account. If I couldn't pay for something with a postal money order or cash, I wouldn't buy it.

None of the utilities seemed to blink at receiving cash for deposits. Maybe things are different in college towns. They all promised to activate services by the end of the next day. While I was out, I passed the phone company, but I also decided against a phone. I was not feeling very sociable.

One of my windows looked out on the street running between the campus and the apartment complex. I stared out of it for most of the afternoon, watching people walk by, their steps quick in the rain. I jumped to a deli in Manhattan for coffee and a sandwich about midafternoon, but I ate them at the window in Stillwater.

At 4:15, Millie crossed from campus at the light and walked up the street. She was moving more slowly than those around her, staring down at the sidewalk, her face remote. She was carrying an umbrella that she'd bought from a street vendor in New York City back when I'd first met her.

"Four dollars, miss. Only four dollars."
She'd shaken her head.
"Three dollars, three dollars."
In the end, they'd settled on two and a half. I'd commented that it would probably dissolve in the rain, but there it was, proving me a liar.

I wanted to jump to the sidewalk and stand in front of her, but the memory of her face from the night before was too much.

So, why am I in Stillwater, then?

I watched her walk slowly out of sight.

I tried to write Millie a letter, to explain why the police wanted to talk to me. To explain that I'd purchased a fake ID with money that I robbed from a bank using an ability that people didn't have. Every time I saw the words on screen, I found myself deleting the document. Hell, I found myself doubting the story. How could I expect Millie to believe it?

I wanted to get away, to hunker down, to wait out the storm. I visited Serendipity Travel and went through their brochures. I ignored all the places that showed people smiling and having a good time. Smiling was not compatible with the image in my head. Finally I found the place, a retreat, located in West Texas. The brochure talked about isolation and wilderness and meditation. It was perfect.

It took me most of the day to get into El Paso. From there I boarded a bus just before it left, and sat near the front, away from the smoking section. I carried the camera in one of the backpacks bought for the Chemical Bank robbery, and stuffed in the pockets of my coat were antihistamines, ibuprofen, and tissues.

I had a cold.

We went east on I-10, winding along the Rio Grande and into a thunder-and-dust storm. I dozed, my sleep troubled by weird, half-remembered dreams that didn't quite stop when I awoke. At the rest stop, before we turned south at Van Horn, on U.S. 90, I stumbled off the bus to buy something to drink, my mouth dry and my skin hot. It hurt to swallow.

The storm's intensity worsened and the bus took four hours to do the next leg of the journey. My fever seemed worse, but I didn't want to waste the time I'd spent so far. If I jumped away now, I'd have to start over at the rest stop, outside Van Horn. I blew my nose and dozed.

At Marfa the bus turned south on U.S. 67, a road which stretched across the desert before climbing through the Cuesta Del Burro and Chinati mountains before making the long drop down to the Rio Grande at Presidio, elevation thirty-three feet. The bus made a meal stop here, at the Presidio Tastee-Freez, but I jumped to Greenwich Village for a falafel pita. I only ate part of it—no appetite. I jumped back for the last leg of the journey, down Farm to Market Road 170.

It was late afternoon and the sky was cloudy, but it was
hot
in Redford. I thanked the bus driver, recorded a jump site, and jumped directly to the Stillwater apartment with only a slight ear pain.

My lover had rejected me, the police were after me, I had a fever of 102°F, my right ear wouldn't stop aching, and I was having trouble breathing. So I felt guilty for feeling sorry for myself.

It's easy enough to say,
Hey, Davy, you're entitled. You've got every right to feel sorry for yourself.
Understanding that didn't make me feel any less guilty. If anything, it made it worse, because the guilt made me angry, made me defensive. So, I was feeling sorry for myself, guilty, and angry.

'Cause deep down inside, I knew I deserved it all.

At 8 P.M. I jumped to a twenty-four-hour clinic in midtown Manhattan. I lied on the sign-in forms about my name and address and said I would pay in cash. The doctor, a Hindu named Patel, listened to my symptoms, took my temperature, peered in my ears, then listened to my lungs.

"Oh, my," he said. I went into a spasm of coughing. He held the stethoscope away from my chest for its duration, then listened again when I was still. "Oh, my."

He took a bottle out of a refrigerator and loaded an unpleasantly large syringe. "You have no known allergies, right?"

"Right."

"Drop your pants."

"What is it?"

"Antibiotics. Ampicillin. You're on the edge of pneumonia. I am giving you this shot and prescriptions for oral antibiotics, cough medicine, antihistamines, and eardrops. If your lungs were any more congested or your fever any higher, I would put you into a hospital bed. As it is, you are to go straight to a drugstore and fill this, then home to bed."

He stuck the needle into the upper part of my right buttock. It didn't hurt at first, but when he depressed the plunger, the muscle cramped severely. "Owww!"

"Don't walk," he added. "Take a cab. Don't exert yourself. Drink plenty of liquids. Drink liquids until you think you will burst."

I nodded, rubbing the muscles below the injection.

He looked at me with narrowed eyes. "Are you sure you understand?"

I laughed weakly. "Do I look as bad as all that?"

"Very bad. Yes."

"Okay. Drugstore, home, bed, lotsa liquids, lotsa rest. Take a taxi. What else?"

He looked less worried. "Come back in two days. Have a seat while I write out the prescriptions."

"I'd rather stand," I said, still rubbing my butt.

He pointed at the couch. "Lie down, then. Doctor's orders. It is very important you rest."

When he'd finished writing out the prescriptions, he asked me how I felt. "My butt hurts."

"You are not having itching, or apprehension? Are you feeling puffy around the eyelids, lips, tongue, hands or feet?"

"No. Why?"

"Just to make sure you are not having an allergic reaction to the injection. Well, off with you, and don't forget to come back in two days."

I paid in cash, jumped to a twenty-four-hour drugstore that I knew in Brooklyn, and had the prescription filled. The pharmacist took forever. There was no place to sit. I leaned against the end of a display and coughed. When he finally finished, I paid, staggered out the door, and jumped, no thoughts in my head but bed.

The room I appeared in was empty and dark, bare of all furniture except the miniblinds on the window. It was the Brooklyn apartment, still sealed by the NYPD.

Stupid!
I concentrated, remembered the Stillwater apartment, its view of the campus where I'd watched Millie walk in the rain. I jumped again, and got it right.

I took all of the appropriate drugs, in the right quantities, making myself check everything twice. The way I felt, I was likely to OD by mistake. The antibiotics were the worst, horse pills, but at least they made me drink several glasses of water before the lump in my throat was gone. If I understood the directions, I wouldn't have to take the next dose until morning.

It took all my willpower to undress before falling into bed.

The next thirty-six hours were blurred, distorted by fever, antihistamines, and restless sleep. When I wasn't asleep, my thoughts turned inevitably to Millie. If I managed to avoid thinking of her, I thought about the police. Every sound I heard outside my apartment made me think they were about to break in, and I would stumble to the windows and look desperately around, paranoid. Once the mailman walked by and for an instant I took the uniform to be police blue.

The fever broke sometime Thursday evening and I dropped into a deeper, more restful sleep, though I had dreams.

Friday morning, I showered, dressed, and jumped to the clinic in Manhattan. There was an awkward moment as I struggled to remember what name I'd given on my previous visit, but I managed, in the end, to dredge it up.

"Well," Dr. Patel said, listening to my chest, "that is much more like it. How do you feel?"