Call Me Jane

by Ryan Maitland

  It was early winter and I was holed up in my room, shivering a little. I was watching some TV show through Tommy’s eyes. The show was called ‘Reaching Over’ and purported to have a ‘psychic’ that could talk to the dead.

  “What a fake!” I commented into Tommy’s head in derision.

  “How can you, of all people, call him a fake?” Tommy asked in semi-surprised tones. “Don’t you talk to ghosts?”

  “Well, sure,” I acceded, “but it doesn’t work like that!”

  “What do you mean?” Tommy asked, ignoring the show, his attention narrowing to me.

  “Well, I’ve only ever seen a few ghosts,” I remarked, preparing for one of the few times when I could teach Tommy something, rather than being the ignorant student, like usual. “I live with one, of course, but the other ghosts I’ve seen, when going to the park, were uninterested in anything going on around them.”

  “Not even you?” Tommy asked, sounding skeptical.

  I thought for a moment, remembering my times in the park and seeing the semi-transparent people, some with grisly wounds, others little more than a wisp of smoke. “I think they paid attention to me,” I started, feeling my way through this, “because I could see them. When they saw that I could see them… it’s like they became more… real.”

  “More real?” Tommy prompted, encouraging me to continue.

  “More solid,” I pronounced.

  “So why can’t the same thing be going on here?” Tommy asked, looking back to the show where the TV ‘psychic’ was walking around his stage surrounded by a large audience.

  “Because he’s getting it wrong most of the time!” I sneered. “A real psychic would get it right almost every single time!”

  “But he seems to be getting it right,” Tommy argued. Tommy liked doing this; he liked to argue so much he would sometimes take up the side he didn’t believe in just for the sake of arguing.

  “No, he’s playing the people in the audience,” I told him, willing to play his game. “For one thing, he’s got a huge audience! Look at them! There’s got to be over two-hundred people there!”

  “It’s a big show,” Tommy smirked, readying his argument. “They probably do it for ratings. Bigger audience means more applause, which makes the show seem more popular than it really is.”

  “I don’t think they do it for the ratings,” I argued, committing myself to criticizing this stranger on TV. “I think this psychic insisted on it. Watch him closely and pay attention to what he’s saying. He’s throwing out random guesses and hoping for a hit. The bigger the audience, the better the chances one of them will latch onto what he’s saying.”

  Tommy was getting into this now, as he ran to his computer sitting on his desk. He did a few searches on a search engine and came up with some web-page debunking TV psychics.

  The internet is a wondrous invention to my eyes. I was so jealous that Tommy had access to this. It seemed to have all the answers!

  “What you’re describing,” Tommy declared after skimming the page, “is called shotgunning!”

  “See?” I preened, proud that I had seen the scam.

  “It looks like there’s other techniques this particular psychic uses,” Tommy went on. “Some of the audience members are plants that ask others about who they’re hoping to hear from. They then feed this information to the psychic, who seems to pull the information out of nowhere.”

  “So, they’re spying on the people?” I asked, getting kind of disgusted at the thought.

  “Looks that way,” Tommy admitted. “It also looks like this psychic has been invited to take part in the Magus foundation challenge!”

  “What’s that?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t something weird. I had enough weirdness in my life, thank you very much!

  Tommy ran another search, this time for the Magus foundation challenge. He came to what must be the site’s homepage and started scanning through it. Tommy was a faster reader than I was so I let him do most of the work, especially since his eyes moved faster than I could track.

  “This foundation is offering a million-dollar reward for anyone that can prove they have supernatural or paranormal powers!” Tommy nearly shouted, remembering himself at the last moment. “Jane! This is it!”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, feeling Tommy getting hopeful, while I remained skeptical.

  “Jane, you said that your biggest problem of escaping was not having anything once you got out!” Tommy explained quickly, laying out his argument by referencing the past to set up the present before talking about the future. “If you were to escape, and get to one of these testing places, you could prove you have psychic powers and have enough money to start your life away from Jack and Billi!”

  “It can’t be that easy…” I rebuked, not believing the reward was genuine.

  “Well, no,” Tommy admitted. “I mean, you’ll have to, you know, escape, then get to… Florida, it looks like, and get them to agree to test your abilities, but once you do that…”

  “If I manage to do all that…” I said, thinking out loud, “then I’ll have a million dollars…”

  “And with a million dollars,” Tommy continued the thought, “you could become an emancipated minor and never worry about Jack and Billi ever again!”

  “Emancipated minor?” I asked, not recognizing the term.

  “It means that, legally, you’re an adult and don’t have to listen to your parents if you don’t want to!” Tommy explained, getting excited at the prospect of finally being able to help me out when I had refused his help every time before.

  “And Jack and Billi wouldn’t be able to do anything to me?” I asked, already envisioning it.

  “If you became an emancipated minor,” Tommy explained patiently, grinning all the while, “then there’s nothing that they could do to you! You’d be free of them, once and for all, if you want!”

  “I want!” I nearly shouted. This time it was my turn to remember that I was trying not to draw the attention of others.

  “Good!” Tommy declared before running even more searches as we worked out a rough plan to sneak me out of the house and get me to Florida.

  It took us a few days to work out a viable plan that would get me to Florida and, hopefully, freedom. I confess that Tommy did most of the planning, since my resources were few. Benjamin helped as well, giving me vital information that I would need, such as where the money and the special key was kept that would get me out of my room.

  The door on my room didn’t have a specific key that unlocked it. It was one of those that had the normal latch on one side, but a tiny hole on the other side. It was the kind of doorknob that was meant to keep anyone from barging in on you while you were in the bathroom, but not enough to deter burglars, or the like. According to Tommy, the company that makes them also sells little ‘keys’ that fit in the hole that will unlock the doors, to keep anyone from accidentally locking themselves out of a room, I guess. Tommy showed me a picture of one on the internet and I described it to Benjamin.

  “It looks like a brass rod,” I told Benjamin. “It’s about three inches long and is flattened, like a screwdriver, on one end, but has a sort of hook on the other end.”

  “Oh! I’ve seen that!” proclaimed Benjamin, looking proud of himself.

  “You have? Where?” I demanded, getting excited. If I couldn’t even get out of my room, there was no way I’d get across the country and this whole plan would fall apart before it even got started.

  “They keep it way up high on the molding around the bathroom door,” Benjamin told me, still sounding proud.

  My hopes deflated at that. I am not tall by any stretch of the imagination. I am, at best, five foot nothing. There’s no way I could reach up that high and swipe it, much less without Billi seeing me!

  What was I going to do?

  Benjamin must have realized the problem, too, because his face fell and he apologized with a muttered, “I’m sorry…”

  Benjamin, being a ghost, could
n’t touch anything in the physical world, not even me! He sometimes floated around, which I envied, but try as he might, he couldn’t make the little hook move one iota.

  It took me a while to work out the solution. I would convince Billi to teach me to be a good housewife. This would include cleaning the house and doing chores, all under the watchful eyes of my jailer. It took some doing, but I was, in the end, able to convince her that the sooner I learned how to be a good wife, the sooner she could marry me off and never have to see me again.

  This approach worked better than I could have hoped! With some people, you just need to know which buttons to push!

  I was dusting every surface in the house with a damp cloth, while Billi ‘supervised’, when I was able to swipe the little rod that would mean my freedom. I’m not entirely sure either Billi or Jack knew it was even there, given how much dust was covering it. I hid the little rod in my underwear, figuring it was the place it was least likely to become dislodged. After cleaning the house, however, came time to get clean, meaning showering in front of Billi, where I’d have nowhere to hide it that wasn’t extremely uncomfortable and risky. I wasn’t above trying to hold it between my butt cheeks, but I was hoping a better idea would come to me.

  I lucked out, however, that day because Billi decided that I had been using up too much of the hot water when showering, so this time she would shower first, locking me in my room in the meantime. I groused enough to avoid suspicion even though, inside, I was elated. Once in my room, I stashed the key in the mattress, next to the toy car before waiting patiently for Billi with a sour look on my face.

  Once I had the key, our plan became simpler, but more dangerous. Benjamin would keep watch on Jack and Billi and let me know when they were sound asleep. I inserted the little rod, flat end first, into the hole in the doorknob, feeling for the catch on the other end before turning it as slowly, and quietly, as possible so that I didn’t alert anyone in the other rooms.

  Once outside my room, I was a little lost, honestly. For one thing, I had only ever seen the house in the light of day. For another, the parts of the house I needed to go to were rooms I had never been to before. Benjamin was there to guide me, leading me to the couch that Jack and Billi sat on, looking for spare change that I could use to take the bus to and from the bus stations. I’d also need a bag to carry my meager possessions in, but I figured that could come later.

  If I was going to steal, then I didn’t want the two of them to notice until I was long gone. The problem was, the money from the couch was literally pocket change and I would need more… Tommy had figured out that the cost of taking a bus from the Oklahoma panhandle to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, would mean getting my hands on hundreds of dollars.

  Neither Jack, nor Billi, had that kind of cash laying around, so we came up with a new plan. I would steal a few dollars, here and there, once or twice a week, from their bedroom. It was extremely dangerous, for me, but I didn’t see any other option. The first time I did it, I nearly screamed in terror at every little sound. Even with Benjamin watching the two of them intently, I knew that any wrong sound, any slipup, would mean they would find my stash and I’d never get out of there!

  Later, I’d sometimes hear Jack and Billi arguing about the missing money. Jack accused Billi of stealing it and Billi accused Jack of having a faulty memory.

  Neither of them thought I might be stealing the money. After all, the money was, for sure, in their room after they had locked me up for the night, so there’s no way I could have taken it! I confess that hearing this made me smile like an idiot. Tommy, on hearing about this, launched into a giggling fit that lasted a long time! He had to tell his parents that he was watching a comedy show to explain the raucous laughter!

  Over the course of months, I managed to get just enough money to get me where I needed to go, with almost nothing left over. I counted and recounted the money over and over, making sure I didn’t miss a penny of this hard-earned money.

  Yes, I know that I technically stole the money, but it felt hard-earned to me! Call it reparations if it makes you feel any better!

  The time had come. Once I did this, there would be no going back.

  I unlocked my door for the last time and crept down the hall to the kitchen, where I picked up a discarded envelope lined with bubble-wrap. The package had come earlier in the day and contained something that Jack must have ordered online. The envelope was still sitting on the table, where he had left it, and once I saw it, I knew that it would fit my needs. Nobody would miss it, or realize it was even gone, and it would hold all my worldly possessions.

  With the envelope in hand, I snuck back to my room and carefully deposited all the coins inside, cringing every time they clinked against each other. I wanted as much of a head-start as I could get before Jack and Billi realized I was gone and that wouldn’t happen if they heard me sneaking out!

  Once the coins were secure, I breathed a little easier. I put the toy car that was my link to Tommy in the envelope and shoved in the bills before exiting my room for the last time. I quietly shut the door and locked it, so as not to arouse suspicion in the morning, and made my way to the front door, where Billi kept my shoes, which still looked practically brand new, having only been worn a few times. I unlocked the front door, thankful that they hadn’t engaged the deadbolt, and made my way outside before I sat on the porch and put my shoes on.

  Once I was outside, I took a moment to breathe in the warm night air. It was the first time I had been outside without being on a damn leash! It felt good!

  But, alas, there was no time to enjoy it! I had a bus to catch!

  It was a warm summer night in July when I made my escape from my personal hell. Once I was in the street, I never looked back at the house I was leaving behind forever. As far as I was concerned, if I never saw the place again, it would be too soon.

  It was several miles to the bus station, according to the maps Tommy had made me memorize, and I walked it in the dead of night, stopping every few blocks to sit and catch my breath.

  I was terrified that someone would see me and report me to the police, but nobody saw me… It wouldn’t be the last time ‘plain Jane’ went unnoticed, but it most certainly was the first!

  I had taken my first steps towards true freedom!

  Chapter 8

  Road Trip

  It took me hours to walk to the bus station, with more than a few rest breaks to catch my breath, but it was still dark by the time I made it there. The station, itself, was smaller than I thought it would be. It was little more than a counter with a small waiting room behind it.

  “I’d like to buy a ticket to Fort Lauderdale,” I told the bored-looking person behind the counter. He was… on the large side, with thick glasses. He seemed to spend most of his job passing the time by reading books. I saw one in his hand and at least one more nearby.

  “Florida,” I added when it looked like he wasn’t going to respond.

  The man put a plastic bookmark in his book and finally acknowledged me, sizing me up. I tried to picture how I must look to him. I was stick-thin, which was accentuated by my black shorts and white t-shirt. I must have looked even more pathetic as I clutched an envelope to me like it was a teddy-bear.

  The man finally heaved a sigh, consulted his computer, and finally asked me, “Do you want to leave today?”

  “Yes, please,” I told him, my stomach doing flips inside me, making me nauseous with anxiety.

  The man consulted his computer once more and finally turned back to me, a look of warning in his voice, “That will be $245. Paid up front,” he added like he thought I couldn’t pay.

  I dug into the envelope and pulled out the stacks of dollar bills and five-dollar bills that I had bound together with rubber bands that I had found around the house during my nightly raids.

  The man looked concerned at seeing so much money, gave me one more appraising look, and took my money anyway. He spent quite a lot of time counting the money, doing it several t
imes to be absolutely sure there was enough. When he was finally satisfied that I did, indeed, have the money to pay for a one-way bus trip across the country, he asked me for my name.

  “Do you really need it?” I asked, afraid of what would happen if I gave him my real name.

  “It’s for the ticket,” he told me, sounding unsympathetic.

  “Oh,” I muttered weakly. “My name is Jane; Jane Doe.”

  The man arched an eyebrow, clearly not believing me, looked me over again, looked at the money, and looked at me again. I pulled out a few more five-dollar bills, money I had been saving to buy food and maybe some clothes, and handed them to him, and pleaded, “Please?”

  The man heaved a sigh, but took my money, pocketing it this time, and started typing on his computer for kind of a long time, making me more nervous with every minute that passed. He finally hit a last key with a flourish and a printer started whirring for a few seconds. He handed me my ticket, which had my false name along with the details of my transit. There were dates and times which included rest stops at several intervals. According to the ticket, it would take a day and a half to get there.

  “You’ll need to take a bus to Oklahoma City,” the man advised me, his tone now somewhat sympathetic. “From there, present your ticket to the people there and they’ll direct you to your bus, which will take you to Florida. The bus to OKC won’t be here for a few more hours. You can wait here for it and I’ll make an announcement when it comes, okay?”

  “Okay,” I told him meekly before moving to one of the plastic seats. They were less comfortable than they looked. I dug into my little envelope to count what I had left. I was down to my pocket change and the toy car that I would not give up for anything. I wrapped my hand around the car, testing the connection to Tommy, but he seemed to be asleep. I considered waking him up, but wasn’t convinced I could, much less that I should.

  I counted the change several times, finding that I still had enough for the bus trip I would need to take in Florida to get to the foundation, plus maybe five more dollars on top of that. I hoped that would be enough for a meal, a real one in the meantime.