The Switch

  “Man, that was good,” said Mose.

  “Yeah.” I choked it down. It was stale, and my throat was so dry, I could barely swallow.

  “So what you runnin’ from?” he asked. “Aside from that old man in the Dominick’s.”

  “Can I be honest?”

  “You always been wit’ me.”

  I’d always been honest with him. Have you ever tried to remember a really good dream—or even a bad one—after you wake up? The more you try, the more it slips away. The kid was telling me we had a history, but it was a history I couldn’t grab hold of.

  And then, suddenly, I could. Like it popped through a wormhole.

  “Okay,” I began slowly. “The day those creeps at school hid your backpack and that a-hole Russell called you a street monkey? You said to me, ‘I don’t belong here. This ain’t my world.’ Remember?”

  “How could I forget?” Mose grinned, but his grin was sad and fierce and broken.

  “Well, I don’t belong here.” I looked around, realizing he might take the wrong meaning from my words. “I don’t mean here, in this neighborhood. I mean here. In this life. You think you’re talking to Jerrold? I’m not Jerrold. I’m Jacobus. And this isn’t even my face.”

  “Man.” He rubbed his chin. “You’re in worse trouble than I thought. Somebody smack you around? Or slip you some molly?”

  “Forget it.” Well, what did I expect? “It’s just too crazy.”

  Just as I said it, a squad car turned into the alley and caught us in its spotlight like two scared animals. The cop gave one little burst of his siren.

  “Shit! They must be after me.”

  “Follow me,” said Mose. “Stay right on my ass. I’m gonna show you how to be invisible.”

  He took off so fast that for a minute, I thought he meant it literally. I’ve never seen a kid move like that. I followed the yellow stripes on his t-shirt into a crack between two buildings that looked like only a cat could fit through. Under a fence whose chain links had been bent for the passage of many scared kids before us. Up a rusted ladder to the third floor of a building and through a broken window with just the faintest light filtering in. Into a dark room where I thought I heard someone snoring. Out into a hallway lit by the dimmest, yellowest light bulb I’ve ever laid eyes on. There were old blankets spread around, and some even had people on them.

  “Whoa, what the—”

  “It’s okay,” said Mose. “I know these folks. I come here sometimes. It’s kind of a safe zone, like churches used to be in the old times. For some reason, the cops don’t bother with it. I think God looks over it. Least, that’s what the Duke says.”

  I followed him down the hallway, stepping over and around blankets, garbage bags stuffed with old clothes, and a few people, one of them just a little kid curled around his mom’s leg, sleeping.

  “You don’t wanna step on the blankets,” Mose told me, “‘cause they’s these folks’ homes. That’s all they got.” He coughed again, and this time there was a kind of wheezy rattle to it.

  A couple of guys, mostly young men, looked up as we passed, saying, “Hey Mose,” or “‘sup, Moses. You leadin’ that boy to the promised land?” But Mose just nodded and kept going, all the way to the end of the hall where the last blanket was. It wasn’t like the others. It was some kind of Native American design, Navaho or something. And sitting on it with his legs crossed yoga-style was a black man with silver hair. It was only the hair that told you he was about seventy. Otherwise, he could’ve been anywhere from forty to a hundred and ten. He had a face like an old monk.

  “Moses DeWitt,” the man said, nodding. “You been up on the mountain again? Talkin’ to Yahweh? What you bring down for me tonight?”

  “Him.” Mose gestured to me. Then he smiled, and the old man smiled back. For some reason, I don’t know—maybe some racial stereotype white people have—I expected to see gaps between his teeth. But his teeth were perfect. I’d never seen teeth like that.

  “Jerrold…or Jacob…or whoever you are,” Mose said. “I’d like to introduce you to the Duke of Earl. He’s the boss here.”

  “How do you do, Jerrold or Jacob or whoever you are,” he said. “Welcome to the Hotel Clybourn.”

  It took me a second to get the joke. I was feeling a little slow. I looked down and saw that the Duke was warming his hands over one of those cheap hotplates poor folks and college students use to heat up their Top Ramen soup.

  “Yes, son,” he said, “you’re looking at my only material possession, other than this blanket and the clothes on my back. Thank the Lord someone forgot to turn off the ‘lectric-ty in this building. These days, my hands are always cold.”

  “That’s all you have?” I asked. “Really?”

  “I like to travel light. Let neither the hunger of the heart nor the desire for possession bind your spirit and keep you from the path.”

  My mouth opened a little.

  “The Buddha said that,” he informed me. “Or I don’ know. Maybe I said it. It’s all connected anyway.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Yeah.”

  “You got to learn how to float,” he added.

  This time, my mouth opened wider.

  “Have a seat, boys. Plenty room on the blanket. Always room at the Clybourn.”

  I sat down, but Mose doubled over with a coughing fit that wouldn’t quit until the Duke gave him three firm smacks between the shoulder blades.

  “Got to get you well, Moses, or you won’t never see Zion.” Duke reached into a floppy, oversized pocket on his coat, which was basically a bathrobe, and pulled out three little brown glass vials with screwcaps. They looked exactly the same. He opened one, sniffed it, and shook his head. With the second, he nodded affirmation and handed it across to Mose. “Oil of eucalyptus. Put that up to your nose and sniff it right down into your lungs while I talk to Mr. J here.”

  “Yessir,” said Mose, thankfully. Then gave me a nudge. “Tell the man what you told me. About bein’ a stranger in the world.”

  “Psalms 119,” said the Duke. “I am a stranger in this world. We are all strangers in this world, son. Mebbe it just came to you now you’re of age. Mebbe you jus’ now took hold of it.”

  “No.” I took a deep breath. “It’s not…like that.” I fumbled for the words. “Aw, hell. I’m just gonna tell it like it happened. I pulled a switch and got thrown into a different life. I’m on my third life, as a matter of fact. You ever heard of the many worlds theory, Mister…sir, uh—”

  “Just call me Duke,” the Duke said. “No, can’t say that I know that piece of lore, but I have traveled through many worlds to get where I sit right now. Some of ‘em sweet, some not so sweet.”

  “It’s not, uh…Mr. Duke,” I said. “It’s not like the Indian thing where you come back as a cockroach.”

  “Reincarnation,” he said.

  “Right. It’s more like time travel. Only instead of going forward and backward, it’s more like side to side. Or like an electric train switching tracks. You think you’re headed one way and then—whoa!—you’re off on a different track. Do I sound totally nuts?”

  He leaned forward, almost until his nose was up against mine, and I swear he looked right into me. Then he sat back and said, “Mirabile dictu! There is another boy in there! Tell me the tale, son. It may be a version I haven’t heard.”

  He sat there with his head bent to the right and his chin in his hand and not moving a muscle. So I told him. About Hartūn. And Connor. And Jemma. And Gordon. And about the alien red-haired mom waiting for me at home. And my twisted-up feelings.

  Finally, the Duke spoke.

  “And this red-headed woman…you say she knows you as her son?”

  “She seems to,” I answered.

  “Then she mus’ be heartsick about you not comin’ home.”

  “About him not coming home,” I said.

  He rubbed the white stubble on his jaw. “Well, now, it’s only me, but if I had a warm bed to sleep in and somebody worried a
bout me, I’d be there.”

  “But,” I objected, “it’s not my bed. I mean it is, but it isn’t. It’s just too weird. I can’t just walk into somebody else’s life.”

  “You already have. Look, you don’t know how long your train might be at this station. Wouldn’t you like to have somebody lookin’ after you while you’re here?”

  “But I can’t stay. I told you: Gordon and me, we’re going back to where we came from.”

  “All fine and good,” said the Duke. “But you got to be where you are, son. Ain’t no happiness without that. Live in the skin you’re in. Even you go back home tomorrow, at least you will’ve had a little love to send you on your way. And if you don’t, you’re gonna need all the strength you can get.”

  “I think the man’s got a point, Jerrold,” said Mose. “Wish I could go home to my mama.”

  The Duke gave Mose a look full of things he couldn’t say. “I bet she missin’ you, too, Moses.”

  “Not as long as that hustler is rubbin’ her lady parts,” said Mose, with an anger that was more than half-broken heart.

  “You be su’prised, Mose. You be su’prised.”

  I couldn’t really argue with his logic. I was cold and tired and hungry. And for now, stuck in the skin I was in. Might as well live in it. All of a sudden, all I wanted to do was crawl into bed.

  “Can I come back and see you tomorrow? I mean, to say goodbye before I leave?”

  “Of course you can, young traveler. Of course you can.” The old man stood up from his cross-legged position without even using his hands. He turned to Mose. “You walk your friend home now, son. You shepherd him like your namesake did. It gets rough down here at night. Desperate people do desperate things.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I stole a donut.”

  We said our goodnights. And it hit me again that the only sad thing about getting back to my real life would be leaving behind the friends I’d made in the others.

  Mose and I didn’t say much to each other on the way. I knew he was thinking about his mom, and he knew I was thinking about mine. When we reached the apartment that was home in this world to Jerrold Rose, the boy with my face, he held out his hand, and I took it and held on.

  “See you at school tomorrow,” he said.

  “Oh, man.” I huffed out all my air. “I don’t know about that. It could be really crazy.”

  “I’ll have your back, Jerrold,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

  I nodded and went through the gate and into the main lobby. I took the stairs instead of the elevator to the third floor. Then I took my keys out, took a deep breath, and opened the door I now recognized as mine.

  omething about the old Duke’s words had put me at ease. If he’d acted like I was nuts and just told me to be a good boy and go home to my mom, it wouldn’t have helped. But it seemed as if he’d really understood how lost I was. He didn’t blink when I mentioned the switch. Did he know about it? And even if he didn’t, he was still saying pretty much the same thing Gordon had: float.

  I can tell you this: when your mom puts her arms around you and rubs your head and talks to you like she did when you were little, it feels good, even if she has red hair and a cushier body and you don’t recognize your own bed or your face. When I closed my eyes, I was still me and she was still her. I fell asleep while she rubbed my head, in Jerrold’s bed, in Jerrold’s weird room with the poster of Tupac Shakur on the wall and a Mac instead of a PC on his desk. I guessed he wasn’t much of a gamer.

  Just before I drifted off for good, I’m pretty sure I asked her about my dad, and I’m pretty sure she said, “He’s in a safe place now, honey,” but if so, I have no idea what she meant.

  The longer I lived in Jerrold’s skin, the more his life seemed to belong to me. More memories came back, such as where we kept the syrup for my toaster waffles and which drawer my underwear was in. Yet, there were still two of me, and that made me feel a little blurry, like the smoke trails Gordon had talked about. This, I discovered later, was because I was trying so hard not to let go of the first me. Not to let go of Jacobus. That was creating what Gordon had called interference. You’re not supposed to be able to live more than one reality at a time, but if I had let go, I might have slipped all the way into Jerrold’s world. That was a step too far for me.

  In fact, I began to think that holding on to “me” was the only way to get through this. “If you keep in mind what I told you,” Gordon had said. “—that the real you doesn’t change—you’ll be able to deal with anything.”

  I went to school, and it was as strange as I thought it would be—with the added strangeness of going back two years. But Mose had my back just like he said he would. It was like having my own personal bodyguard and memory-bot by my side because when I was foggy about someone’s name or which class was next, he’d be right there, whispering, “That’s Oscar. He’s okay,” or “Room 302 is next.” As weird as it all was, what kept me going was that I knew that at precisely 4:15, I was going to meet Gordon on the baseball diamond and Gordon had a plan. If it worked, I could be home for dinner.

  But, of course, that world might have no Mose in it. As a gamer, I was used to making hard choices. But the choice of one world or another? Now, that entailed giving things up.

  Anyway, there was a lot to get through before then. In the hallway after lunch, I saw the eight-year-old Jemma again. She was with two of her little friends, who didn’t even notice me as we passed each other—typical grade school behavior, as you never really make eye contact with anyone in a higher grade. But Jemma did. You don’t very often see eight-year-olds in a state of philosophical confusion, but that’s the way she looked when she glanced at me. As if she was all, “I don’t know how I can know him, but I do, and that’s crazy.”

  But how could she know me? Unless people could sense not only the future of their present reality, but their future in a parallel universe, too?

  I didn’t have an answer, but decided to try and ease her confusion anyway. I called, “Jemma!”

  For a few seconds, her friends kind of hustled her along, probably because they’d been taught not to talk to older boys. But then she broke loose and turned, holding her books against her very flat eight-year-old chest like a battle shield. I walked up and what I really wanted to say was that one day, she’d have a killer body, but that seemed totally wrong.

  “It’s Jemma, right?”

  She nodded warily, looking down. At least her name had stayed the same.

  “Pleased to meet you.” I held out my hand. Her friends, at first suspicious, started giggling. “I’m…I’m Jerrold. And you know that weird feeling you have right now? Like you know me from somewhere? I’m here to tell you you’re not crazy.”

  She raised her eyes to me and just like that, I could see how pretty she was going to be at fifteen. “Seven years from now,” I said, “in a different…uh, place…you and me are going to be in the same class. Ms. Furbel’s geography class. Room 203. And a kid named Hartūn is gonna pass you a note. And another kid is gonna grab it from you and get into trouble. And when that happens, you’re going to remember when I stopped you in the hall seven years before to tell you this. And you’ll look up at the kid who took the note from you, and that kid will be me. Only not me, but, well…me.”

  All three of them rolled their eyes. It even made me dizzy.

  Oh hell, I thought. Why am I trying to explain it to an eight-year-old when I can’t understand it myself? I was new at this, so it didn’t occur to me that what I’d told her probably violated the laws of physics. This Jemma might never be part of that future.

  “Just sayin’,” I said. Her friends pulled her along, but she kept stealing looks back, and a strange feeling came over me. It was a feeling that in some way, Jemma had understood, and that this understanding might hold the key to my getting home. How, I had no idea.

  Maybe Gordon was right. Maybe you could make a connection between two different worlds. That wasn’t supposed to be possible. But
that was all just math equations.

  This was real.

  As I walked on, it was like my eyes had been opened to things I couldn’t see before. The way you notice a new color everywhere after someone first points it out to you. I started seeing eight-year-old versions of other kids I knew from my real life. I had come into Casimir Pulaski Elementary in fourth grade. Some of the kids who were now my friends or enemies weren’t even there yet, but many were, and I began to recognize them from the smallest distinguishing features, like a beauty mark on the upper lip or a pair of ears that were way too big for a head. And all of a sudden, I felt really old, and sad, too, because I was a stranger to them. Sweat broke out on my forehead, and I ducked into the boys’ room because I thought I might be sick.

  That was when my mind did another flip.

  I was standing at the urinal even though I didn’t really have to pee so much as throw up. There were five urinals in the bathroom, three for the older boys and two closer to the ground for the younger ones. I was at the third in, right next to the pint-sized one. A little kid came up to it, unzipped his fly, and then looked up at me. Little kids haven’t learned the law of the urinal yet: that you never, ever look at the guy next to you.

  “Hey, Jacobus,” he squeaked.

  I had to look at the midget, and when I did, I saw two very slanted eyebrows with a little white scar between them that I recognized very well. A shiver ran all up and down my spine.

  Interference, big time.

  “Connor?” I said, after my jaw started working.

  It didn’t take any longer than that—the time it took for me to say his name—and the whole thing evaporated like fog on a car window and there we were, at the urinals, and this little kid looking at me like he’d never seen me before. He zipped up his fly and beat a quick retreat without even washing his hands, only looking back once.

  There was no doubt in my mind that he said my real name. None. But when I tried to picture it, I couldn’t see his lips moving. This did not mean that I’d imagined it, only that somehow I’d heard him without his actually having said any words. Was I developing telepathic powers?