Jumper:Griffin _s Story j-3

by Steven Gould

  "British," I said.

  "Oh. Your Spanish sounds like Mexico."

  I nodded. "Yeah-that's where I learned it."

  "I went to school in Texas," he said. " Baylor Medical School."

  "Ah. I've lived in California. I'm a little cold, Doctor."

  "Oh, forgive me." He pulled a cabinet open and took out an examination robe. "I'm a pediatrician. My clinic is near where you were mugged and I live next to it. I'm afraid I stitch up a lot of the local bar fighters." He took out the IV and helped me put on the robe. "What hotel are you staying at?"

  "None. Only just arrived."

  "Oh, so they stole your passport. I was hoping it was at your hotel."

  I shook my head.

  "The nearest British consul is in Bilbao. I think they can issue emergency passports."

  I nodded.

  "You need to be very careful-I stitched together three different layers of muscle. No exercise for four weeks, and then some physiotherapy." He pursed his lips. "It could've been much worse. I think they were going for your kidney. You would've died within minutes."

  I remembered twisting around at his movement. Yeah, he missed. But if he hadn't, it wouldn't matter how fast I'd jumped? "I would've bled to death?"

  "Oh, yes. The renal artery is very big. Only immediate attention in a trauma center could have saved you. Your attacker must've been a very desperate man."

  I blinked. "I'm not feeling much."

  "Oh, you will. You'll need something for the pain. I'll write you a script."

  "And the stitches?"

  "Ten days. The internal ones will dissolve-don't worry about them."

  "Okay."

  "If there is redness or discharge or swelling, get to a hospital."

  "Okay. How much do I owe you?"

  "You don't have insurance?"

  "No."

  He told me how much he would've been charged against an insurance company and I gave him that and half again in the U.S. dollars.

  "The police are waiting to talk to you."

  "Of course," I said.

  I asked to use his bathroom and didn't come out.

  At first, I slept well, but the lidocaine faded and pain brought me awake, a shout of pain echoing off the walls of the Hole. It was agony to put a T-shirt on. Merely painful to pull on some shorts.

  I jumped to a farmada in La Crucecita. I didn't care if the bastards detected the jump-you don't need prescriptions to get pain medication in Mexico. I explained my problem to the pharmacist, even started to lift my shirt to show the dressing, but raising my left arm was not in the cards.

  The pharmacist looked alarmed at my expression and gestured for me to put the shirt back down. "Treinte-nueve puntadas?" The number of stitches really impressed him.

  "Verdad."

  He sold me a bottle of Tylenol with codeine. I jumped back to the Hole before I was through the door.

  I wasn't able to get back to sleep but the ache died to a dull throbbing. I dressed carefully and shopped for new shoes, first in San Diego, then in Rennes. Had to let the clerk tie them for me. At six that evening I carefully boarded the Southwest Chief at Los Angeles' Union Station, let the conductor show me to my expensively exclusive room, and, with the aid of the pills, slept fitfully on my right side.

  My plan had been to sketch at every stop along the way, but the drugs knocked me (and that plan) on its ass. I did manage a few drawings out the stateroom window at the stations in Kingman, Flagstaff, and Winslow. In New Mexico I got Albuquerque, Lamy, and Raton, but I doubled up on the pills after that and slept all the way through Colorado and most of Kansas, waking up in time to sketch Lawrence and Kansas City. There was only one other stop in Missouri, La Plata, and only one in the corner of Iowa before we began crossing Illinois. I gave up drawing. Everything hurt too much and the pills were making me constipated.

  The last five hours into Chicago were misery encased in a fuzzy drug fog. I stank-I hadn't trusted my ability to keep the stitches dry and just washing my armpits was surprisingly difficult. I'd been bumped by other passengers several times as I tottered along the passageway to the dining car.

  And I'd been thinking.

  He'd told them. Investigator Vigil had told them I'd be at the library. They'd been waiting. They'd either gotten there ahead of me or come in a different entrance, possibly circumventing the emergency exit alarms.

  But Vigil had told them.

  Bastard.

  I checked into a hotel near the station, paying in advance. I explained that I'd been mugged and that was why I didn't have any ID. Looking at my face in the mirror later, I looked older than I remembered. I was older, but the real change stemmed from the pain. Maybe they thought I was over eighteen or maybe they just felt sorry for me.

  I used the bathtub, gratefully, leaving my left arm down, the water shallow. I managed to get rid of the stink and even wash my hair a bit. The bed was softer than mine back in the Hole, but even with the drugs, every noise brought me awake with an adrenaline rush. Finally, I turned on the lights, got a good look at the room, and jumped back to the Hole, where, harder bed or not, I actually slept for six hours.

  That was when I turned the corner, I think.

  It hurt the next morning but not so bad. It was manageable.

  I didn't take a pill, and by the time I'd finished breakfast back in the Chicago hotel, the drug-induced haze was lifting.

  The Lakeshore Limited left at 7:55 P.M. and arrived at Penn Station midafternoon the next day. I'd slept better than I had since the attack and as soon as I was off the train I bought a New Jersey Transit ticket for Trenton. While I waited for the 5:01 train, I drew a nook under the Seventh Avenue steps. The train was ridiculously crowded, but then it was rush hour. It hurt to sit, anyway, so I found a corner where I could prop myself without leaning against the stitches.

  The trip was just over an hour.

  Trenton was wet, light rain.

  The concessionaire had a Trenton map. Trenton Central High School, where E.V. went, was about a half mile from the station and her address, on Euclid Avenue, was even closer.

  But it was raining and an hour standing on the train had wiped me like a blackboard. I sketched a spot on Platform ID, complete with scurrying commuters, and jumped back to the Hole.

  Ten days after the attack, I went back to Dr. Uriarte, waiting with mothers and their sick kids in his pediatric waiting room.

  He blinked when he saw me, puzzled, and then he remembered. ";Es usted! Where did you go?" He looked around at the interested audience and waved me back to his examining rooms. Several women who'd been there before me looked murderous.

  When he'd closed the door to the examining room he said, "The police were very upset with me. They said I was lying when I told them you'd left, naked."

  "Lamento mucho. I didn't mean for them to bother you. I need my stitches out, but if it would cause trouble, I could find someplace else. I'll pay cash."

  He considered it. "Of course we'll take out your stitches. They didn't say to call if you came back."

  "Ah. Muchas gracias."

  He had one of his nurses pull them while he dealt with some of the other patients and their angry mothers, but he came back and examined the cut when she was done. "Excellent. There will always be a scar. A line, but I think you won't have any functional damage."

  I paid him twice what he said the amount was.

  I called on a Friday night, from Penn Station. She wasn't at home but her mother told me she'd be back by ten and she was, snatching up the phone when it rang at 10:05 P.M.

  "Hello?"

  "Hello, E.V., it's-"

  She interrupted. "It is you. I've been waiting almost an hour! My mother could've called me-I was just down the block at Rhonda's! She didn't realize it had to be an overseas call!"

  "Well, no. Actually not. I'm in New York City."

  She was quiet for a second then said, "Really?"

  "Really. I was wondering if I could drop off that sketch, t
omorrow, perhaps, if your schedule is clear."

  She laughed. "Clear. Mother? Is my 'schedule' clear tomorrow?" She said it British, like I had, "shed-youl." "Of course my schedule is clear." This time she said it with the hard c. "Where? When? Should I take a train into the city?"

  I liked that idea a lot but I said, "No. Don't think your parents would give that a go, would they? Better I should come to you. All right if I come around about ten? Euclid Avenue, right? Looks like it's walking distance from the station."

  "How'd you know that?"

  "Maps, m'dear. Maps."

  "Oh. Well, that would be fine. What are you doing in New York?"

  "Talking to you."

  I jumped to the Trenton station the next morning and joined the crowd getting off a Philadelphia train. I walked, stretching my legs more and more. The cut was still incredibly sore but I was regaining my stamina. I no longer got dizzy standing up, and I was able to manage the boxed sketch under my right arm. For the first time in two weeks, I felt clean, having had an excellent shower-no worries about getting the stitches wet.

  There were buds just beginning on the trees and green grass sprouting among last year's brown. Her home was a yellow-brick two-story with an enclosed porch. She'd called it a "colonial" on the phone. She was on the stairs when I turned onto the block, though she waited until I was in her yard before advancing to meet me. I could tell she was going to try to hug me, so I held out the box, quickly, and she had to halt her advance to take it.

  "Come in, come in."

  Both her parents were waiting in the front parlor. Her mother was standing by the window and her dad was seated, with a book, but I had the feeling they'd both been waiting. I put on my best manners as I was introduced.

  "Pleasure to meet you. Charmed."

  Mrs. Kelson was a redhead but running to silver. Mr. Kelson wore his dark hair cut seventies-long, over the ears, over the forehead. It hadn't gone gray yet or there was dye involved. I didn't like his smile-it didn't touch his eyes.

  It may have been a "who are you and what are you doing with my daughter" thing.

  Her mum's smile was genuine, though. Mrs. Kelson loved the sketch. E.V.'s dad said "very nice," but his brow was furrowed and he stole surreptitious looks from the sketch to his daughter and back.

  "You made a copy?" E.V. asked.

  "Yeah, I've got a decent photocopy." I didn't say it was twice the size of the original and hung beside my bed. I didn't think that would go over so big-not with her father.

  "What are you doing in New York, Griffin?" asked Mr. Kelson.

  "On my way home from Europe. I live in Southern Cal."

  "Oh, really? Not England?" He looked at his daughter.

  "We didn't really discuss it, Daddy. I saw him in London and he's British. What was I supposed to think?"

  "Yeah," I added. "We were talking about drawing, mostly."

  "Where in Southern California?"

  "Out in the desert, in west San Diego County. The nearest town is called Borrego Springs." This was the truth, after all, but then I lied. "I spend half the time with my uncle in California, the other half in Lechlade, in Oxfordshire, with my grandparents. I was visiting a friend's cousin when I met E.V. in France."

  "Your schooling must be complicated," Mrs. Keslon said.

  "I'm on self-study. Homeschooling. It's the only way this works. When I go to university, it'll be different."

  E.V. turned to face her parents. She said, "I'm taking Griffin to Laveta's for coffee."

  "We've got coffee here-" That furrow between Mr. Kelson's eyebrows was back again but Mrs. Kelson cut in, saying quickly, "Certainly. Are you going to get lunch out, or would you like to eat with us? Patrick's coming in from Princeton on the train."

  E.V. glanced at me then said, "My brother. We'll catch him after lunch, okay?"

  "Okay," Mrs. Kelson said. "He's going back on the four-seventeen so make sure you get back in time."

  "Right," said E.V.

  She grabbed her coat-the large black one she'd worn in Europe- -and shrugged into it and we were out the door.

  "Walking?" I asked.

  "Yeah, it's close. Over on State Street, near the train station but on the far side." She grabbed my left arm and I tensed and she let go. "What's wrong? Is that not okay?"

  Her face had dropped as if I'd struck her and I hurried to reassure her. "Sorry-hurt my back. It's the left side. I'd love for you to hold my other arm, though."

  He relief was palpable. "I thought you were moving a little stiffly."

  "Yeah."

  It took ten minutes to walk to Laveta's, where we got coffee to go. Behind the coffee shop a cemetery stretched between State Street and the train station. "You warm enough?" she asked. It had started partially cloudy but now it was completely overcast and the wind was gusting around corners with a moist bite.

  "Maybe if you let me share your coat."

  She grinned. "I like the way you think."

  She showed me a bench in the back corner of the graveyard. "Here. I come here to sketch." She opened her coat wide on the bench and invited me to sit on it. When I did, she wrapped it around us both.

  "Huh," she said.

  I barely dared breath. "What?"

  "We both fit in here just fine. I thought you were larger. You take up more space in my mind."

  "Sorry. Always been short for my-"

  She kissed me.

  I closed my eyes and leaned into it.

  After a moment she drew back and I said, "You could've just said shut up."

  "Are you complaining? I mean-"

  This time I stopped her mouth with a kiss.

  Oh. My.

  Hands were roaming, mine, hers, hers guiding mine. I ached and not in the bad way of the last two weeks. Her hand, roaming up under my shirt, found the cut and I nearly yelled in her ear.

  "I'm sorry. They took out the stitches yesterday and it's still, uh, tender."

  "Stitches? What happened?"

  We'd ended up apart. She turned me around and lifted the edge of my jacket and shirt, previously tucked in, now out. "Jesus Christ! What happened?"

  My mouth worked but nothing came out.

  " Griffin? What's wrong? Someone did this to you, didn't they?"

  "Well, yeah," I said.

  "Why? That's from a knife, right?"

  "Yeah, it is." Then, in a rush, "He was aiming for my kidney." I stood up and let the jacket and shirt drop back down. "Cold."

  She pulled her coat closed.

  "Who did that?"

  "I lied to your parents."

  She looked confused. "What? Can't you answer a straight question? What do you mean, you lied to my parents?"

  "I don't live with my uncle or my grandparents. I don't have grandparents. I don't have an uncle. After my parents were-after they died-I lived with a friend in Mexico, then later, I got my own place. The place in the desert I talked about-that part was real."

  "What's that have to do with the cut on your back?"

  I kicked at a pile of last fall's leaves, clumped and decomposing, sending them flying. It was a mistake. "Ow!" I limped around in a little circle, favoring my left side. "What I'm trying to say is that I don't want to lie to you. But I don't want to be thought crazy, too, and some of the stuff I want to say sounds terribly crazy."

  She pulled her legs up onto the bench under the coat, and hugged them. "What kind of crazy?"

  "The people who killed my parents are still trying to kill me. They were trying to kill me when they killed them."

  She looked like she was about to cry. She doesn't believe me. She does think I'm insane. I held out my hand like a crossing guard stopping oncoming traffic. "Wait. There's proof."

  And I jumped away.

  She's going to run screaming, I thought, as I ripped the old microfilm newspaper printouts from my plywood gallery.

  I jumped back.

  She was standing, but she hadn't run. She did have her fist against her mouth. She flinched back an
d sat down hard as the concrete bench caught the backs of her knees. She began gasping.

  I took a step closer and her eyes widened and she leaned away. Well, now I knew how she'd felt when I'd flinched away from her in front of her house, when she'd grabbed my left arm and hurt my back by accident. I moved very slowly and set the papers down on the end of the bench but the minute I let go, the wind threatened to send them flying and I dropped my hand back down.

  "Look, they're gonna be all over if you don't take them." I slid them closer to her, careful to stay beyond the end of the bench.

  She put her hand down, as far from my hand as possible and yet still on the pages. I straightened up and backed away.

  "What was that?" There was suppressed hysteria in her voice. "How did you do that?"

  I gestured to the papers. "It ties in. Go ahead, look."

  When she'd picked them up I said, "I've got other cuts- older scars," I said quietly. "The top two stories are when they came for me when my parents were alive. I know it says drugs were involved but that was bullshit." I pointed to my right hip, the wound I got that night. "They nearly killed me that night."

  She read through the pages, glancing up often to keep track of where I was. "So your name really is Griffin O'Conner."

  When she got to the third page she said, "Who's Sam Coulton and Consuelo, uh, Monjarraz?" She got the j right, a soft h.

  "Sam and Consuelo found me in the desert after… that night. They fixed me up. Later, Consuelo took me to Oaxaca and I lived with her niece for almost two years, until they found me again and I had to leave. After that, I lived by myself.

  "They held Sam and Consuelo hostage, trying to get me to surrender. When I sent the INS in… well, you see what happened."

  She read on. She stopped tracking me as she got into the body count. I crossed my right arm over my stomach, pulling my left into my side. I felt my shoulders droop, hunch forward. The accused is in the dock awaiting the verdict of the jury.

  "So why do they want to kill you?"

  I shook my head. "I wish I knew for sure."

  "It's something to do with, uh, what you just did, right?"

  "Yeah-I really think so."

  "And what did you just do?" She licked her lips. "I mean, I saw you disappear, but where did you go?"