The Jump Journal

by Douglas Corriveau

  This went on for a while, which isn’t surprising. I played a chess game this way a few years down the road, and it took what felt like hours. There were so many possible combinations of action and reaction that I had to exhaust all of the options before I could win. Luckily, the human face is far less durable than the human mind. A fight takes considerably less time to flesh out and outsmart the pattern. After hundreds of “retakes”, I knew the exact sequence, the perfect “choreography” for my real life action movie.

  My villains charged in. With impeccable timing, I dodged my first attacker, speeding him on his way with a swift kick as he stumbled past me. Fielding punches and kicks from the next two as they tried to flank me, I waited for the crucial make-or-break moment. The guy with the face of an enraged hippo swung his arm back wide for a haymaker as the one covered with tattoos leaned back to throw a kick at me. Now. I leapt into action. A quick strike behind me doubled Angry Hippo over as I ducked under Skin Cancer’s kick and swept his remaining leg out from under him. The air in his lungs made a very satisfying whoosh as it rushed out of him upon impact. Without slowing down, I lashed out at the guy with the beak-like nose, catching him behind the knee with my foot. As he fell to his knees, I planted a foot heavily into his back and leapt off of him, flattening Big Bird into the ground. I had timed the jump perfectly. On my way back down, I landed a massive Superman punch on my final opponent with all of my downward momentum. The whole fight took fifteen seconds, and I didn’t have a scratch on me.

  Breathing heavily, I noticed the music had stopped sometime during the fight and the whole room was dead silent. No one talked, no one even seemed to breathe. I started to wonder if I had made a horrible mistake by winning this fight. Maybe getting your butt handed to you by a handful of goons was better than an entire club ripping you to shreds. Even time-travel couldn’t get me out of that one alive. I was seconds away from jumping all the way back to when I left the laundry place when the whole room exploded into cheers. With a surge, the clubbers swept me up onto their shoulders, parading me around like I was the trophy, not the winner. The music pounded back to life through the speaker system, and I was bounced, bustled, and practically tossed around the club for a solid five minutes. Eventually, I was returned to terra firma and greeted by none other than my blonde and blue-haired Judas.

  “We should talk!” he yelled. “Follow me, I’ll get you that meal now!”

  Now that time, I’m pretty sure I had heard him right. I followed him to the buffet.

  Chapter 10

  Trust. Now there’s an elusive trait. Hell, forget elusive, it’s as slippery as an eel covered in motor oil. I was taught from a very early age that trust is earned, not given. After years of experiencing the rise and decline of trust in relationships, I’ve noticed that trust isn’t earned or given. It just exists, until it’s crushed under the boots of betrayal. Every friendship you’ve had, every crush you’ve written poems to, every face you’ve passed on a sidewalk, they all trigger an immediate reaction in your gut. Sometimes your instincts tense like a coiled spring, and you know that stranger you just passed is bad news. But that doesn’t happen often. We’re wired to trust most people that we talk to, for no other reason than they haven’t given us an excuse not to. And, naturally, that’s when we get hurt.

  ****

  As I stalked through the club on the heels of my acquaintance-turned-foe-turned-benefactor, I was so tense and jumpy that I almost decked a guy who roughly pounded me on the back in congratulations. Barely restraining myself from getting into another brawl, I continued toward the buffet tables at the back of the club. After everything that I had experienced, I knew that just being in the presence of Laundry-guy meant subjecting myself to the unexpected. I didn’t like that; anyone who can surprise a time-traveler was clearly a chaotic individual.

  A bejeweled hand gestured toward a seat at a secluded table, and I slid into it warily, never once taking my suspicious glare off of the man. He tossed himself into a chair across from me with abandon, waving toward the multiple plates of food on the table.

  “Eat! That’s why you came isn’t it?”

  “No, I came to throw down with four apes that I don’t know, ‘cause that’s just how I do,” I snarled, coating each word with ice-cold anger.

  He laughed, his surprisingly low voice full of humor and not one ounce of repentance.

  “Please, eat. I’ll explain, but there’s no use listening on an empty stomach.”

  “Yeah….no. I’ll think I’ll pass on any poisoned goodies your club has to offer. Judging from your level of hospitality, your water is probably laced with cyanide.”

  “Oh, stop. You’re fine. Not a scratch on your pretty self,” he grinned as he snatched a barbeque chicken wing and ripped into it with gusto. “Now eat or I’m gonna take it all.”

  I was still tempted to walk out of there that second, but my hunger resurfaced at once, shattering my indignant willpower. I stuffed my face like the world was ending. He smirked, lounging back lazily in his chair.

  “Much better,” he purred. “Now let’s get down to it, shall we? My name is Nicolae, or at least that’s my handle around here. I own this little slice of nirvana.”

  My mouth was full, but my sarcasm was still evident through my mumbling.

  “Neva would ‘f guessed.”

  He continued as if I hadn’t spoken.

  “The club is good money, but I have…hmmm…..expensive tastes. I’m dedicated to turning a profit in whatever venture I undertake.” He kicked his feet up on the table, raising his eyebrows to emphasize his point. The trouble was, I had no idea what point he was trying to make.

  “You’re gonna have to give me a little bit more to—“, I trailed off as the most stunning brunette I had ever seen walked toward our table. She acknowledged me with a smile, but her focus was completely on Nicolae as she draped an arm around his neck and planted a long, smooth kiss on his lips. He winked at her as she walked away with a tiny finger-wave and a sultry look. I coughed hard.

  “You’re gonna…um, have to give me a little more to work with than that.”

  I could tell he was getting a kick out of my distraction. His permanent half-smile never changed, but I read the glint in his eyes as amusement and satisfaction.

  “She’s a beauty, isn’t she? I tell you, I love Wednesday.”

  “Today is Friday.”

  He posed with his hands behind his head like he was modeling for a photo shoot.

  “That’s what I call her. One for every day of the week.”

  I stifled the urge to pinch myself and check if I was awake or not. Maybe all the hits I had taken and reversed had addled my brain cells. Nicolae had a different girl like that every day of the week? This guy? Tossing political correctness out the window, I basically said as much.

  “I thought you were, um, you know, you seemed like—“

  He lifted a single eyebrow mock-quizzically and leaned forward as if anticipating an unexpected response.

  “Like what?”

  “I didn’t think you were into…..uh, women.”

  His smirk became even more lopsided as he chuckled.

  “Aw, what’s the matter? Disappointed?” He winked as I tried to stammer a response, then waved it off. “I like to find what makes someone most uncomfortable and watch them squirm under the pressure. You learn the most about a man when he feels so awkward that he can’t maintain the socially-obliged façade that everyone expects.”

  “So you aren’t—“

  “Would it matter if I was? Maybe I am, maybe not, maybe both. What should matter to you is why you’re here, not what team I play for.” He stretched out like a cat, perfectly at ease with our strange conversation.

  “Back to business: I want you on my crew, working for me.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because I saw potential in you. I liked what I saw in the Laundromat and I had to bring you here to confirm if you have what it takes.”

  “By pitting me a
gainst four giants?? What, you want me to be your new bouncer?”

  He giggled, but didn’t answer my question.

  “The hours are exceptionally reasonable, the pay is high, and you’ll get free access to the club as an added bonus. Interested?”

  “What would I be doing?”

  “It’s a rewarding job, I can promise you that.”

  I had a feeling that I really wasn’t going to like what he said, but I asked him again, this time with a lot more force:

  “What would I be doing?”

  He popped to his feet like a cross-dressing Jack in the Box, pulling me up with him. His eyes gleamed eerily in the flashing club lights.

  “Let me show you.”

  He raced off into the crowd, leaving me standing alone, bewildered. Was I supposed to follow him, wait here, or leave? I couldn’t be sure with Nicolae. The decision was made for me when a small bag hurtled over the heads of the crowd and landed with a gravelly crunch at my feet, followed seconds later by Nicolae’s reappearance from the mob of clubbers. Still beaming with the excited air of a little kid, he threw his hands in the air with a what-are-you-waiting- for gesture.

  “Go on, open it!”

  A little concerned that I was about to find his collection of human toes, I hefted the bag in my hand. It was far too heavy to be the souvenirs of past kills that I anticipated, but somehow that didn’t put me at ease. Cringing, I poured some of the contents into my hand. The strobe lights flashed and suddenly my hand lit up in response. It took me a few cycles of the on-off pattern for me to realize that the small, rock-like objects in my palm weren’t lighting up, but merely reflecting the brief glares of the strobes with mirror-like brightness. As realization and shock crossed my face, Nicolae came and stood alongside me, his own face contorted in a bizarre combination of ecstasy and greed.

  “Beautiful, aren’t they?”

  Absolutely blown out of the water, I gazed down at the small fortune of diamonds clutched in my sweating hand, unable to speak. I had never seen so much wealth in one place. My instincts screamed at me. Run! Run as fast and as far as possible! they pleaded. But I couldn’t focus on anything other than the glittering stones. With everything that had happened to me; time-jumping, Tara, leaving my old school, I had the mistaken belief that the world owed me something. After a few seconds of that incredibly distorted thinking, I tore my attention out of my daydreams of uncountable wealth and back to reality. Turning to Nicolae, I gave him the answer that his smug smirk was waiting for.

  “I’m in.”

  Chapter 11

  Wealth is the second most powerful drug in the world, and by far, the most common-place. After all, only I can time-travel, but anyone can acquire wealth. I’m sure you’re scoffing, but it’s true: Anyone can be become rich. All that it requires is that you sell a part of yourself in exchange. Think about it: You can work endless hours, but you sacrifice family and friends. You can be born into it, but you lose the empowerment of self-creation. Fame breeds wealth, but you sell your privacy. Ask any upper-class citizen with a six digit net worth; Wealth comes at a price. They’ll either say that, or they’ll lie to you and to themselves, but the truth remains incorruptible.

  Wealth is expensive.

  ****

  The next three months were the most adrenaline-filled, action packed, and morally compromised years of my life, and that’s saying something. As soon as I agreed to be a member of his crew (a group that I knew nothing about at the time, other than that the rewards for joining were staggering), he took me under his wing and began molding me into the perfect new addition to his inner circle.

  The first thing I learned about my new lifestyle was that everyone I was going to be working with was as eclectic as Nicolae. Well, not quite, but since they were all trying to emulate him in some way, they came pretty close. I couldn’t keep track of who was just copying his off-putting style of crossing societal boundaries and who was actually trying to seduce me, but after the first few weeks, most of the copycats realized that I was wise to that trick, reducing the need to avoid unwanted advances.

  The second thing I learned: Nicolae was an incredibly charismatic leader. For all of his idiosyncrasies, or just flat-out weirdness, he knew how to inspire loyalty. It didn’t take long before I jumped as eagerly to follow his orders as everyone else did. He was fair to a fault, treated everyone like a favorite in his own way, and wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty.

  And there was the crux of the issue.

  The only real problem that I had with joining the Red Door Lounge crew was with what I had actually been recruited to do. But in order to tell that story, I have to go back to that first night, the night I first surrendered to the cruel grasp of the wealth illusion.

  Nicolae slapped me on the back and yelled over to the bartender to bring us some celebratory champagne. I was still so entranced by visions of swimming in pools of money and drowning the memory of Tara in wild living that I never stopped to ask myself something: What was the job? Nicolae had adeptly dodged any question regarding my duties. Oh, who cared? I was gonna be rich, and in my desperate need to avoid any thoughts of her, that seemed as good a distraction as any. Little did I know what I was in for.

  A few hours later, the club shut down for the night. Or for the day at that point, I guess. Nicolae cleverly avoided giving his clubbers any easy form of keeping time, and as he pointed out, “club dresses don’t have pockets for cell phones”. It was a slick way of keeping people in the “drink more, buy more” loop, and it showed Nicolae’s talent for subtle manipulation. As the clubbers staggered into the pre-sunrise haze in various states of inebriation, the now-empty club floor contained only a few individuals: Nicolae, a handful of other creatures of the night, and me. As I looked around at the strangers in the room, my first impression was that their look was designed to inspire thoughts of second-rate vaudeville acts. Needless to say, I didn’t fit in and their expressions clearly stated as much. I wasn’t exactly welcomed like a long-lost relative, and I’d be lying if I said that the hostile gazes didn’t flow in both directions.

  Sensing the awkward tension, Nicolae swung a languid arm around my shoulders and soothed his groupies with a customarily crooked grin.

  “Say hi to the newbie, boys and girls. Ryan here is our new breaker!”

  Clearly, he didn’t receive the enthusiastic reaction he was hoping for. Like a stern teacher, he stared around the circle, reprimanding his “students”.

  “Don’t be rude now, he’s a part of the crew. Show a little love.”

  One of the men in the group, who could have been anywhere from 18 to 40 years old, slid over to me across the circle and before I could make a move to stop him, lifted my hand and kissed it with a smile as creepy as all hell.

  “Lyman, at your service,” he lisped as I snatched my hand from his clingy fingers. He skulked back to his spot among the others, winking in a way that I can only imagine he thought was seductive. Luckily, the others were far less awkward with their introductions. In short order, I met Lydia, Scarlet, Rathbone, and Joe. To this day, I can’t figure out how Joe came to be Joe. Everyone else went by their club handle, a sort of a nom-de-garre, if that translated to “alias” in English. They were all unique names; Nicolae, Lyman, Scarlet. But Joe was simply Joe. I don’t know, it just struck me as odd. But I digress.

  I nodded a cursory greeting, not really inclined to say anything to these people. Visions of the gems I had held earlier still danced in my head, which was the only reason I could stomach being in this place. If Nicolae knew that, and he probably did, he never once acted like it. He stood in the center of the circle and began to talk.

  I wasn’t really sure what I was hearing.

  “Alright, kiddos, let’s break this down real easy. Bogey’s got a glass of water on the next train out to Pleasantville. If we can stop for breakfast, we’ll drink that glass of water and everything will be a hunky-dory milligram, capisce?”

  I thought I was having a stroke. Eve
ryone else nodded and grinned, nudging each other like high school guys peeping into the girl’s locker-room. A part of me suspected they were just as clueless as I was and that they were just pretending in order to understand to seem clever. Nicolae continued.

  “Lydia and Rathbone, you’ve got bird-watching. Scarlet: the A-team. Lyman, it’s your turn to take a nap, and Joe-” He looked over the enormous, brooding Joe. “Good old Joe, you’re gonna teach the rookie over here how to break.”

  Bewildered, I shot a look over at Joe, who showed about as much expression as a paralyzed rhinoceros. I was clueless; did everyone except me understand this ridiculous diner-talk? I could only think of two possibilities explaining this nonsense.

  Nicolae was stoned out of his mind and everyone was too polite to say anything. Doubtful.

  Nicolae was speaking in code because those diamonds weren’t really his.

  Before I go on, let me just say this, ok? I was still in a really bad place. Maybe it doesn’t seem like it because I’m just telling you the story as it happened, but if I elaborated on the emotional angst and the agony I was feeling post-Tara, this would be a daytime soap opera. The crucial take-away here is that I was one hurtin’ unit, and not for the first time, I was too screwed up emotionally to listen to my better judgment.

  OK, enough disclaimers. Naturally, I didn’t assume Nicolae was high, or at least high enough to be spitting out word salad instead of the English language in front of five people. Code was the obvious explanation, and rather than accepting that what I had signed up for was incredibly illegal and getting the hell out of dodge, I started trying to interpret. I didn’t get very far before the members of Strange Outfits Anonymous started wandering off to various parts of the club. I guessed the meeting was adjourned. Nicolae saw my expression of confusion and walked over to me.