The Jump Journal

by Douglas Corriveau

  A child’s wail pierced the silence and shattered the frozen moment with the hammer of awareness. In that instant, the three of us made eye contact and shared a thought before the chaos ensued.

  Uh-oh.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  The shorter of the two men, a red-headed Caucasian who looked to be about my age, dashed into the next room. Shouts and scuffle echoed through the walls, but my attention was a bit consumed by the cold steel glinting in the second thief’s hand. A grin played over his face, but the same apprehension that I felt was flickering in his eyes. He was young, about my age, with handsome Hispanic features. In a second of clarity, I realized we were all kids in an adult situation, and none of us wanted to make the first move.

  One of us had to, though, and he did. Quick as a striking cobra, he lashed out with the blade. It was a wild strike, not really calculated or aimed, and I managed to elude it. He struck again and again, wielding the short knife with hacking strokes. Luckily, he was telegraphing his movements. I could read the direction of his next slash before it reached me.

  I saw my window of opportunity and took it, slamming a forearm down on his wrist as the blade whooshed a hand’s breadth from my stomach. Flares of impact raced up both of our arms and the knife flew out of his hand. We both eyed it for a second, then dived at each other. I dropped low and drove a shoulder into his gut. As we both fell to the floor, he lashed out with his fists, but the angle was all wrong and his punches glanced off my shoulders and back. We rolled around, clawing, shoving, tossing elbows and punches. My talents were less than useless in this type of struggle; I could barely see, let alone identify where any of his attacks were coming from. This fight would be decided honestly, although that was far from my first choice.

  With a final heave, I tossed him off of me and pinned him down with a knee on his chest. Three heavy punches later, and he was K.O’ed. A scarlet drop of blood fell lazily from a deep scratch on my forehead and plopped on his forehead. Sore and out of breath, I crawled a few feet away and sat up on my heels, massaging my bruised hands. Someone cleared their throat less than a foot away, and a shiver raced all the way up my spine to my brain, shaking it back to full awareness.

  Oh, crap.

  The robber who’d disappeared into the other room had returned and his gun had returned with him. The double click of the cocking mechanism was ludicrously loud in the tiny apartment. I struggled to catch my breath, still winded. There didn’t really seem to be anything else to do anyway. The red-headed thief leveled the gun so that it pointed directly between my eyes. The barrel glared at me like a solitary eye with a dead, black stare. I couldn’t concentrate on anything else until a small whimper sounded from the corner of the room.

  In my peripheral vision, I could make out three pairs of pajama clad legs. Two were adult, one was child-sized and clad in pink fleece pants with teddy bears on them. All three were visibly shaking.

  The residents.

  The thief must have raced into their room because he knew they’d call the police. Thanks to my noisy entrance, they went from sound asleep to wide awake and terrified. Worse yet, a child was in danger now, too. I squeezed my eyes shut in remorse; in my attempt to be a hero, I’d managed to turn a simple theft into a life-and-death situation.

  The little girl clung to the protective arms wrapped her, unable to rip her eyes away from the weapon trained on my head. Her parents’ eyes flickered nervously from the gunman to me to the gun itself, as if unsure which posed the greatest threat to their family. As my common sense shrieked in the throes of a 20/20 hindsight “I told you so” tantrum, I was willing to contest that the most dangerous person in the room was me. I’d brought this on them. The least I could do was ensure that nothing more befell them because of me.

  A quick glance away was all the opportunity that I needed. As the thief’s gaze shifted over to the family, I slapped his gun hand towards the wall and sprang to my feet. The gun fired and a crack split the tension in the room and my eardrums simultaneously. I clapped my hands over my ears and staggered, barely keeping my balance. A continuous, high-pitched whine was the only discernible sound in the world; the rest were muted beyond comprehension. The little girl was screaming, but I only knew that because her mouth was agape in a silent “O”. The gunman roared angrily and whipped the smoking weapon back toward me, but I wasn’t about to let a little thing like deafness jeopardize this rescue mission. That family would not get hurt on my watch.

  With a muffled roar of my own, I dove into him like a linebacker. His gun arm was trapped between our bodies, the gun itself pointed towards the floor. He fired once, twice, three times. Each shot pulsed with recoil, driving the gun painfully into my rib cage, but the bullets themselves merely dug blackened holes into the hardwood floor. I drove him back, heedless of everything except a desire to force the man out of this family’s home. The sounds of the world began to return to me; I heard the child’s screams, the growing panic in the thief’s yells, and the musical twinkle of breaking glass as we crashed through the window and plummeted three stories to the ground below.

  Falling from a third story window takes longer than you might suspect. It’s best described as a simplified version of your life flashing before your eyes; instead of a mental slideshow of your greatest hits, you just get time to think.

  The first thought you have is something like, Geez, I’m still falling? This is really gonna hurt.

  The next is a montage of places you’d rather be instead of hurtling through air towards an unpleasant rendezvous with Mother Earth.

  The third thought sounds like an irritated old codger grumbling about his neighbors. I really wish that moron would stop screaming as we fall, it’s bugging the crap out of me.

  And lastly: Well, anyone have any good ideas?

  As of that moment, I didn’t, and the thief and I crunched against the gritty pavement. A searing pain flashed up immediately in my ribs, arm, wrist, and ankle, followed by a shuddering non-pain that I knew was my body going into shock. I’d heard the snap of bones as we’d crash landed, but I couldn’t tell if that was the sound of my own injuries or if the robber next to me had suffered the same fate. I didn’t dare move my neck in fear of discovering a spine injury, but judging from the belabored gasps, I figured he was still alive.

  We lay there together in agony, sucking in deep gulps of air, only to choke on them and cough painfully. This process circled mercilessly, and I faded in and out of consciousness. In one moment of awareness, I heard a faint wail of sirens approaching and knew I had to act. There was no good way to explain this situation to the police. Best case, I’d be brought up on assault charges and the last thing I needed was to pass out again and wake up cuffed to a hospital bed. The prospect of prison was not an appealing one. I groaned weakly. I hated this part.

  The time stream does not have great bedside manner. Regular jumping hurts; to say jumping while injured is painful is like calling Hitler a bit unstable. This was no exception to the rule. Bones slammed back together, tendons stretched taut, and all the while, the continuum chewed greedily at my flesh. I collapsed the instant I was tossed out into reality, nearly smacking my forehead on the closed door of 36 A. The silence was deafening after the earlier chaos. The whispers of the two men on the other side of the door startled me back into motion, and I scrambled away from the door as quickly and silently as my aching body would allow.

  I found a niche in the hallway to tuck myself into as I recovered. I leaned my head back against the wall as an all- consuming feeling of failure washed over me. What kind of superhero increases the amount of havoc instead of decreasing it? If I couldn’t even handle a pair of thieves, there was no way that I’d move on to stopping murders and other “bigger” crimes. I should just hang it up now, I told myself; I wasn’t cut out to be a hero after all.

  The instant that thought crossed my mind, the same defensive defiance that had gotten me into this mess lashed out again. Of course I could be a hero! One failure di
dn’t make me a hopeless sad sack with no talent; I still controlled the flow of time. There was no limit to what I could do!

  I hate that little voice. It got me into trouble then, and it gets me into trouble now. The problem is that it tells me what I want to hear, and that siren call is damn near impossible to resist.

  Luckily, the persistent throbbing from my disastrous heroic endeavor lent a little perspective. Since I clearly had no clue how to handle this particular situation by myself, I had to call in some backup. There had been sirens as I lay crumpled and broken on the concrete in the alley, so maybe this hideous neighborhood wasn’t completely lawless after all. A spark of inspiration slowly grew into a blazing inferno. Granted, the notion wasn’t as grand as I might have hoped, but it kept my failure that night from being complete.

  I steadied myself for another jump. The dull pain from the last one was slowly receding, and I hated the thought of reawakening it, but it had to be done. The door to 36 A creaked open and two shuffling figures crept out of the shadows and down the hallway toward my location. Self-preservation told me to jump right then, before they saw me, but an angry growl escaped my throat in response. Those assholes were stealing from a lovely family, and on top of that, I held a grudge. I hated jumping while injured.

  I stepped into sight, arrogant and nonchalant. The two froze in their tracks, their bundle of stolen goods dangling awkward between them. It was a stare down, like the seconds before the clock strikes noon in an Old West duel. I embraced my ability, ready to dive into the time stream the second it became necessary. The red-headed man eased his side of the bag to the ground. Eagle-eyed, I followed his every motion. I knew what would come next.

  He snapped into action. His hand dropped down to the gun stuffed into his pants, intent on using it to paint the hallway with my blood. I grinned, self-righteousness singing through my veins. I formed a gun out of my thumb and forefinger and leveled at first the red head, then my sparring partner. For a split second, the gunman locked up in confusion, unsure if my hand was a weapon or not. That was all I needed.

  “Sorry, boys,” I said. “Tonight’s not your lucky night.”

  The redhead snarled and yanked out his gun, but by the time he could wield it, I’d already let the continuum swallow me and wipe the slate clean. They had no idea yet, but I’d already won. The game would be over the second that they stepped foot into 36 A.

  ****

  I materialized in a subway stop near the homeless shelter. This was where I’d started my journey to the hood, full of comic book delusions and bravado. I limped slightly as I went off in search of a payphone, more out of habit than anything else. Jump sickness, as I mentally referred to it on occasion, didn’t attack certain parts of the body like arms or legs. It left a universal impression of crushing force, along with a strange cold sensation; to put it in practical terms, it was like being tossed in a juicer, then stabbed with icicles. It was just disconcerting enough that there was never any trace of actual body damage. Limping, lurching, or staggering helped my brain maintain some semblance of reason.

  Finally, I spotted a pay phone tucked away in a corner of the station. I hobbled my way over, and quickly encountered another challenge: I had never used a payphone before. Did I just insert a coin and go? Did I have to talk to an operator? Why was the phone cord eight feet long? I stared in bewilderment for a second, overwhelmed by this simple task. I was a child of the Information Era and this fossilized device was an enigma to me. Ah, hell. I’d seen movies; I could do this! I squinted at it like Dirty Harry, as if intimidation would force it to yield its secrets. It worked. I discovered little directions under each part of the phone’s apparatus, guiding me through the process. As the phone rang and the police dispatcher answered, I couldn’t help but feel an incredible sense of accomplishment and victory.

  The dispatcher’s voice was warm and soothing, if a bit clinical. The police had chosen well; it was exactly the type of voice I’d want to hear in an emergency.

  “911, what is your emergency?”

  “Hi, I’d like to report a robbery on 59th and Seamore, building 15, apartment 36 A.”

  “Alright, sir, I need you to tell me everything you know,” she said calmly. “How many individuals are there?”

  “Two.”

  “Are they armed?”

  “Yes. Well, one is,”

  “Have they threatened you or anyone else?”

  “No, not yet,” I answered quickly. “Look, there’s a family in there, and if you don’t stop these guys, they might be in terrible danger.”

  “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to remain calm,” she said, her voice showing no sign of alarm. “We’ll send help. What else can you tell me about the situation?”

  I tucked the phone between my shoulder and ear, rubbing my eyes as I attempted to remember everything about my encounter with the thieves.

  “It’s a simple layout, two main rooms. The front door leads into the living room/kitchen area, which is where they’ll be. There’s a door in the southwest corner of the room which leads to the bedroom, where the family is sleeping.” I gestured to the imagined locations in the room with my eyes still shut, trying to glean as much helpful detail as I could. “The two thieves are between twenty and thirty years of age; one is a red-haired Caucasian, the other is Hispanic. The Caucasian is armed, and not afraid to use or threaten bodily harm to the residents if they wake up.”

  There was silence for a moment on the other end of the line. I assumed she was writing everything down. Her voice was strained when she came back on the line.

  “Is there anything else you can remember?”

  I wracked my brain, but nothing relevant came to mind.

  “That’s all I can think of. Please hurry, they’ll arrive in-“, I did some quick calculations,”-half an hour.”

  “And what’s your name, sir?”

  Something in her tone niggled at me. It almost sounded suspicious.

  “Ah…,” I hesitated, unsure if I wanted my full name on record. “Mitchell.”

  “What’s your last na-“

  I hung up. They had everything they needed to stop the thieves now. Still, I didn’t like her tone towards the end of the conversation. It had felt accusatory, like she didn’t trust me for some reason. I’d given her everything the police could possibly ask for. I couldn’t fathom why she sounded the way she had.

  It didn’t matter. I had done what I set out to do. The temptation was there to catch the train that would arrive in the next two minutes and head back out to watch it all go down, but I dismissed the idea as gloating. I had to trust that the police wouldn’t dismiss such a detailed lead.

  I wasn’t disappointed. The following morning, I read all about my good work in the paper. Sure it was still back page news, but it was there. The three paragraph story was stingy with information and only included the barest outline of the events. Still, it included a grateful quote from the father, thanking the police force for their intervention, and I even got a moment of glory in the phrase “an anonymous tip”. I knew giving just one part of my name in a city that had no record of me left the police with very little to search for. I still couldn’t figure out why they were so curious.

  I decided that while it wasn’t quite what I had planned, this was still a good ending to the story. The bad guys had been nabbed, the police got their accolades, and I’d used my talents for the greater good. I was buzzing with self-satisfaction and itching to dive into my next Samaritan act with gusto. I glanced over the reports of penny ante robberies, looking to move on to bigger and better things. I’d saved a family’s belongings, but now I fancied the idea of saving the family itself next time. A homicide in the obituaries snagged my attention, and without so much as a “Hi-ho, Silver!”, I was off and away.

  Some precision jumping and a phone call later, my work was done. The paper lost an obituary and gained a short piece on an attempted murder. This quickly established itself as a new pattern in my life. Every morni
ng over whatever breakfast I could scrounge up, I prowled through the newspaper in search of my next save. Nine times out of ten, I’d call in the police. After that first encounter, I’d realized that even I could find myself in situations that were too intense, so I was content to let the paid professionals pinch hit for me. Still, if after careful inspection I felt I could manage, I’d flex my muscle a little. What was life without a little danger?

  At least that’s what I told myself. I was investing so much into this crusade that I failed to notice a disturbing trend: I was jumping for everything. It had started off innocently enough. At first, it was only to travel back to a time before each crime took place. Then I started shaving minutes off my commute. Soon, the walk down to the newsstands took too long, so a little time travel became necessary to reduce the agonizing pace. Bit by bit, the dragon of addiction was rebuilding itself, latching its claws into me and whispering that yes, I did need to find more situations to save.

  I read a story once about the devil. I don’t remember who it was by, but the tale started out with a man on a soapbox, preaching to the crowd about the conniving traps of Lucifer. He promised the wide-eyed spectators a portrait of the face of Satan himself. With a dramatic flourish, he revealed a cartoon drawing of a red skinned, horned, and bearded figure wielding a comically huge pitchfork. The crowd roared with laughter and went about their business, while failing to notice that the entertainer on the soapbox had been the devil himself all along.

  It may not have been the devil, but there was something that I was oblivious to, something I should have feared above all else: I was relapsing. I stifled any qualms I might have had by reminding myself of how noble my actions were. Just like the crowd in the story, I saw what I wanted to, and while I turned a blind eye, the dragon grew larger every day, feeding voraciously on every jump that I made.