“The fuck?” he muttered, approaching. He couldn’t see the end of the painting and—Jesus, that was all an effect, anyway, something superimposed over a green-screen shot during post-production. The paintings, in reality, were small; they only looked large when the effect was complete.
“Like I’m in a movie,” he said.
The rain went through what his mind insisted was a matte-painting and it made his eyes cross. He raised his hand, hesitated, then put his fingertips to it. A jolt like static electricity snapped at his hand and a nauseating sense of vertigo swirled through the center of his head, followed by a ping of pain, like a sharp jab to a pressure point. For the briefest moment, the sting of hospital cleaner—bleach insufficiently masked with perfume—slapped his nose, the chocolatey-sweet taste of HoHos flooded his mouth, and he heard the opening piano chords to a song that sounded distressingly familiar.
McIntyre stumbled away, hugging his stomach, holding onto his balance through sheer will alone. The saturated tails of his tie slapped his chest as he retched. Nothing came up but thick spit.
(of course not when was the last time I ate)
He straightened, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand like a kid, and turned back to the town.
“How the hell did I get here?” he asked. He realized he still held his smartphone and a brief burst of hope rose—only to deflate when he turned the screen towards him to see it covered by a thin green-plastic stick-on coating, something the effects crews would put on electronics during shots so they could insert the CG
(like a matte-painting)
later.
McIntyre peeled the sheet off and tried to turn on the phone. The screen remained black.
With a sinking feeling, he peeled off the rubber case and opened the battery-housing. Empty, of course.
(a prop)
(like in a movie)
(this isn’t some fucking movie)
He threw the phone down and it bounced with a crack off the asphalt. He touched his pockets, but they were empty.
“How the fuck did I get here ? ” he yelled.
(i’d been getting ready the phone rang and)
And nothing.
(where the hell have you been jimmy)
And he was back in Traumen, Ohio.
(you have to come home jimmy)
But, looking through the intersection where
(petroleum street)
began its uphill climb, the roofs of post-World War II houses like a giant’s shaky staircase, nothing came to him. Just names. Barely factoids. Things he might’ve pulled off Google Maps and a read-through of his IMDB profile: James McIntyre, screenwriter to the adaptations of Paper Towns and 13 Reasons Why was born in Traumen, Ohio, and—
—but there was no “and.”
“Oh shit, I don’t remember any of this.” He squeezed his fists to his aching temples, as if pressure could force the memories out. There was just this moment, this instant. Before now was La-La Land and Deanna and Marty, but even they lacked any depth in his mind. More names. Like half-assed amnesia.
(hurried storyboards for a film trapped in pre-production hell)
(you did not live these times)
And before that? Just black. More complete amnesia. He might’ve been created this moment, whole and breathing at the age of 31 with only the roughest sketch of backstory.
“Fuck.” McIntyre dropped his hands. The certainty that every end of the intersection was a matte-painting, that he was trapped here, stole over him. It was ridiculous, but then so was the matte-painting of the Petroleum Street Bridge.
(or waking up in a town i haven’t thought of in years with no memory of getting there)
Movement flickered out of the corner of his left eye and he turned to look down West Front Street.
A figure stood at the far end, where the street curved.
Or, more accurately, a boy stood at the far end, his green shirt and blue pants the brightest thing in this gray area, so small that McIntyre could’ve blotted him out with his pinky-nail.
(where the hell have you been jimmy)
(you need to come home jimmy)
He started after the boy before he even knew he was moving. “Don’t you move! ” he yelled. The rain sapped the strength of his words. “Don’t! ”
It was like running in a nightmare, his effort to move faster unmatched by the distance he covered. He winced when he approached the edge of the intersection, his nerves anticipating the crunch of another impact.
But his shoes splashed through puddles and he kept going. He passed brick commercial buildings to the left, a blocky medieval structure that according to the sign was the Traumen Public Library to the right. The idea that this was a set, that this was all fake, persisted. These were wooden constructions—hollow inside, something the art department and production design teams whipped together.
And then, crossing the intersection of West Front Street and Center Avenue, the world flickered again.
It wasn’t like before, but instead like the curtain of the world had been tugged back to reveal … nothing. Darkness.
McIntyre’s foot came down, but his nerves pulled his weight back, certain he was going to plunge into darkness, and he went sprawling. He hit pavement—tumbling and rolling, the world completely solid again, shredding the elbows of his shirt, pain flaring up.
He raised his head, but the boy was gone.
“No he isn’t,” McIntyre muttered, getting to his feet, and running again, battling the pain in his joints. The boy wasn’t gone. The boy had moved out of sight. McIntyre would find him. He had to. He had nothing else at the moment. That boy
(where the hell have you been jimmy?)
was the only straw he could cling to.
(unless you’re having a nervous breakdown unless you’re strapped to some hospital bed)
He reached the corner of State Street and West Front and zipped across—the idea of checking for traffic was a joke no one laughed at. To his left was the Veteran’s Memorial Bridge, wide and slightly curved, with no buildings or trees to hide the view of Traumen’s east side and the gray, dead Ohio sky above. The name came to him with no fuss whatsoever, and he recognized the view before him, but none of it held any context beyond a minor tug at the back of his aching mind.
He ran in the opposite direction, up State Street. The boy hadn’t gone over the bridge.
(presuming there is a boy)
(there is a boy goddammit)
(how do you know and how do you know you’re heading for him?)
He passed a commercial building with a bar-and-grille called the Ven-Bar on the corner and something pinged in that dull throb in the center of his brain: he’d taken a date here once. They’d had the dining area to themselves, which was good because the girl had had the loudest laugh—
“You guys have fun tonight?”
The man’s voice was a gunshot next to his ear. McIntyre jumped, bouncing off the wall of a PNC bank—and did he feel the building give a little bit?
(never mind)
He spun full-circle, even as he knew he was alone.
(nervous breakdown sounding any better?)
But he knew that voice; he knew it.
He just didn’t know how; like Traumen, like its streets, it lacked context. Lacked depth. Errant puzzle pieces. How can you remember something, but not remember it at all?
And then, as if his brain was trying to taunt him—
(i’m glad you’re getting out jimmy it’s what she would have wanted—)
He smacked the heel of his hand against his temple, like his head was an old television on the fritz, even as his feet began moving of their own accord, turning him down Second Street. “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” he said.
His shoe scraped against something metal.
He looked down to see a large tin sign reading BAKER’S MARKET—half-obscured by a faded Coldwell Banker sign. He wasn’t terribly surprised at the now-very-loud ping of memory it brought.
; (a trail of mental breadcrumbs)
(to what?)
McIntyre looked up at the little building the sign had fallen from. Through the front window, he could see the wooden counter to the right, Ohio Lotto scratch-offs sealed beneath old shellac; the squat ice-cream case catty-corner beyond, as if someone had made an apathetic attempt at removing it; the corkboard back wall, metal display hooks half-torn away; the comics rack lying in the center like a dead dog.
“I remember this,” he whispered and the glass shimmered like an old-movie-flashback effect. The interior was now well-lit, the ice-cream case humming, the hooks stocked with single-serving chips and gummy candy, the comics rack standing and flush with an early-1990s run of Marvel Comics: Uncanny X-Men, Spectacular Spider-Man, What If …? All as he remembered it.
As he remembered it.
He reached out—
—and his fingertips touched not glass but dry, papery skin.
McIntyre screamed and staggered back, holding his hand by the wrist as if he’d burned it. He could feel that skin, and that familiar, loathsome—
—nothing.
His hand felt only cold and wet. Rain filled his palm.
Something in his head teetered, close to just falling over with a crash. His thoughts, half-formed, collided and entangled together.
(no memory)
(a trail)
(no backstory)
(of mental breadcrumbs)
(to what?)
(you’re getting out jimmy it’s what she would’ve wanted—)
His will broke and he bounded down Second, his feet working on automatic and turning him up Imperial Avenue. Old Sears & Roebuck catalogue houses marched along the street, guarded by older curbside trees, their root structures upsetting the sidewalk.
McIntyre saw none of it. This was white-out time, broken-will time. A yellow stitch unzipped down his side, but he’d run forever, not even after the boy now, just to get away, get away, get away—
He stumbled and there was time for a single thought to zip across his mind—It’s my day for falling down, all right—before tired flesh met old cement. Pain bit into his elbows and knees like hot wires.
When he came to a stop, McIntyre opened his eyes and saw a pebble, a loose bit of the sidewalk, an inch from his nose. Extreme close-up. He lifted his head and saw, diagonally across the street, home—the fact, like all the rest, came unbidden.
305 E. Third Street.
What little breath he’d accumulated escaped in a rush. “Shit.”
It had been an old home when he’d lived there, stuck onto the corner of Imperial and E. 3rd, and the intervening years since he’d left—
(when DID i leave?)
—hadn’t been kind. The second-floor windows sagged in their frames like dead eyes. Aluminum siding peeled from the house like flecks of dead skin. The front lawn was an almost-neon-yellow.
The air between him and the house shimmered, like quicksilver in the distance, and the knuckle of pain in his head bloomed. McIntyre sat up before it could get worse, before another one of those damned pings—
—and saw the boy, the boy, barely three feet away, standing beside a fire hydrant and flickering—not once, but continuously.
McIntyre recoiled, covering his eyes. The glimpse of the boy had only been for an instant, but it was like trying to look through thick glasses when you had perfect vision.
“Not very pleasant, is it?” the boy said and it was the voice from the phone, the voice that had called him back home.
(where the hell have you been jimmy?)
“What are you doing to me?” McIntyre yelled, driving his fists deeper into his aching eyes.
“What are you doing to yourself,” the boy replied flatly and McIntyre heard something much older buried beneath that I’m-not-yet-in-puberty voice.
He grunted.
“Look at me, James,” the boy said and the youthfulness was completely gone, replaced by a voice like gravel grinding together. “Look at me, James McIntyre.”
Something outrageously hot slammed into the backs of his hands. He screamed, throwing them out, his shoes digging in and shoving him away. His back fetched up against what felt like a stone wall.
(???what stone wall???)
He opened his eyes and saw
(jump cut just like a movie)
they were no longer on the corner of E. Third and Imperial. Old Victorian houses with manicured lawns marched away to their left and right.
(bissell avenue holy christ i’m on bissell avenue)
His eyes tracked the houses, the intersection a few yards away, each sight bringing with it another ping.
His eyes landed on the flickering boy standing at the curb. What made looking at him hurt wasn’t the flickering itself—how many goddamn science fiction films featured a flickering hologram?—was that he changed. One flicker, the boy’s hands were at his sides. Another, he held a heavy hardcover book with a red-and-white dustjacket. A third had the boy grasping a softball of creamy light.
The boy’s green tee was long, with an embossing of the Tasmanian Devil. Faded jeans, worn along the back heels. Knock-off Jordans. His hair a shaggy, dirty blond.
McIntyre locked onto the boy’s eyes, recognizing them without any sort of ping. Didn’t he see those same eyes—cradled in stress-wrinkles, it was true—every morning in the mirror?
James McIntyre was face-to-face with Jimmy McIntyre, eleven years old, still two years away from the growth spurt that would give him his adult height of six-two.
He had called himself—brought himself back home to Traumen, Ohio—or whatever this place actually was.
He started shaking. “Why are you doing this?” he asked and his voice was a croak.
“Why are you doing this to yourself, James,” Jimmy said, his hands ever-changing.
McIntyre bared his teeth. “I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re fighting me,” Jimmy said. “That’s why it hurts. You always fight me.”
“I’m not fighting anything.”
“Oh?” Jimmy said and McIntyre didn’t think so much mockery could fit into such a small word. “Why does your head hurt, James? Why do you keep having these pings whenever a memory escapes from that goddamned graveyard you have in your head?”
McIntyre looked up, suddenly numb. “How—”
Jimmy turned so McIntyre could see across the street. “Do you remember waving to the hearse?”
It was another Victorian House, but a cloth canopy extended from the front porch to the sidewalk. An ornate wooden sign with REINSEL FUNERAL HOME & CREMATORY dominated the extravagantly landscaped yard.
“What—” McIntyre started to say, and—
(— you’re walking past men in black suits who don’t want to put their hands in their pockets but don’t know what else to do with them. you hear soft and not-so-soft sobbing but you can’t respond to it; you feel numb. you turn right, into the first viewing room and start down the row made by the folding chairs, all directing you to the front, where—)
(NO NO I CAN’T I WON’T THINK OF THAT)
(— you’re on the curb, and you’re waving at the hearse as it drives past, turning onto Harriot Avenue, but you don’t know why and you stop. a man—who?—has a hand on your shoulder, as if you might bolt, but you won’t. the only thing you’re feeling is your itchy rented suit. the man behind you says, choked up, “christ, jimmy, i don’t know if i can go up there, don’t know if i can see—”)
—McIntyre’s stomach revolted, lurching him onto his hands and knees and expelling bile onto the rain-slick sidewalk. The knot of pain in the center of his head felt like a cluster of diseased teeth.
“I saw what you did there,” Jimmy said. “It’s what you’ve always done. Whenever you get too close to it, you bolt.”
McIntyre rested his feverish forehead against the blessedly cool concrete. “I don’t understand. I don’t know what any of this is.”
“Of course you don’t,” Jimmy said and the contemp
t turned his words into little knives in McIntyre’s ears. “But now we’ve run out of time. I can’t be a ghost forever, any more than you can be a dream forever.”
McIntyre raised his head. Oh, his head ached.
“I have hope for you,” Jimmy said. “But maybe that’s because you’re our last chance.”
He raised his hand and flicked it, like someone working out a kink in his wrist. The world around them flattened, became as two-dimensional as a matte-painting seen up close. The rain stopped.
Fissures zig-zagged down, top to bottom, like a child using black marker to draw lightning. The world blew apart in a thousand pieces, revealing a blackness that was the apotheosis of black. No up-down, left-right, north-south-east-west. The kind of black that ate light. It rang, beginning like the hum he’d heard back in California, becoming the ringing that had pulled him conscious here. It was constant and consistent.
Neither McIntyre nor Jimmy plummeted or stumbled, although McIntyre’s entire body clenched, nerve-endings anticipating a drop. They stood on nothing McIntyre could feel, but they did not fall.
“This is the core of everything,” Jimmy said and he no longer flickered. He held the softball of creamy light, its illumination throwing his face into stark relief, making him appear both ridiculously young and unbelievingly ancient. His voice had given up any pretense of sounding like a boy. “Our universe. I don’t know how it is with other people, but this is ours. It was once filled with light, each one a different life, following its own path. Ever hear of quantum physics? Like that.”
McIntyre felt warmth in his palms and looked down to see his own softball of creamy light, flashing and dimming, a bulb about to die. He couldn’t feel the object that made the light, the tangible thing he was holding, but couldn’t let go or collapse his hands.
For the first time, the pain in his head took the backseat. “What happened?”
“What always happens. A car accident. A fire. A mugging gone bloody. A suicide. A heart attack. Sometimes our minds simply can’t take what it’s been shown and gives itself an embolism, which is so funny, given the circumstances, I want to shriek. The light dies and there’s one less version of us.”
Bones are Made to be Broken Page 14