Someday

by David Levithan

  Mrs. Schaffer makes another call and my parents stare at me and Mrs. Schaffer says she can get me in for an evaluation tomorrow at ten a.m., and I feel it’s probably not the right time to point out I’ll probably be up way before that. My parents agree to ten a.m. and herd me away like it’s the end of the first day of kindergarten. School’s been over for almost an hour now but there are still kids around, and when Isabella sees us, she comes over and is real friendly and I find myself despising her. I’m not going to say anything, but then I say, “Et tu, Judas?” And at first I don’t think she hears me. But then she says, “This isn’t what you’re like, Alvin. This isn’t you, and all we’re doing is trying to get you back.” I understand what she means, but I laugh because she’s wrong, because what’s more me than my extremes? Or at least that’s what the body wants me to think as it drenches me in chemistry. I really have to get out of here.

  It hurts that Rhiannon asked me to say something and here I am, saying nothing. I feel this so intensely that Alvin’s body relents a little—or maybe it just pours its chemistry into my own extreme thoughts. I realize I don’t have the right vocabulary to articulate what it feels like to be inside this body, because on the car ride home, Mr. and Mrs. Ruiz are asking me, and I don’t have anything to tell them except “There are just a lot of thoughts, all at once, all the time.”

  “I know, I know,” Mr. Ruiz mutters, but doesn’t say any more than that.

  When we get home, I go for the computer, but they’re right there in my room with me, watching what I do, so I go back down to the TV room and switch channels until dinner. At dinner, they ask me how my day was in school, and I tell them all about how my drawing was stolen and what the point of Jane Eyre is and why Oliver Cromwell isn’t as important as everyone says he is, and I only stop because I think I’m scaring my sisters and I can’t expect them to be able to keep up with me, not like this.

  I finally get to the computer after dinner, and there’s a short time when my parents are in the kitchen talking, their voices drowned out by the dishwasher, when I can actually get some privacy. I go to create a new email account, then spend about a half hour trying to think of the right name, because some of them, like AMissesRhiannon, are a little too obvious and might be weird if Alexander sees them in her inbox, because boyfriends always look at what’s in the inbox even if they say they don’t, and other names are just too random, like when I type in A it suggests A798009043, which would be impossible to remember, and I wonder how many A’s it would take to get a screen name, but AAAAA­AAAAA­ is taken and so is AAAAA­AAAAA­A and at a certain point it says I have an invalid address, and finally I settle on AforR7777 because 7 is a lucky number, and that works.

  Now, what do I say?

  My mother comes in and tells me I should get some sleep, and I look at my clock and somehow it’s eleven, which can’t possibly be right. And I guess that maybe I worked on redecorating my room in between thinking of the perfect email address, because all the drawers and shelves are pulled away from the walls, so I can have a path AROUND my room if I want to walk around all the furniture. I tell my mom that I’m not tired, but in my mind—my own mind—I know I have to be asleep by midnight, because if I’m not, what happens isn’t any fun. The question is whether I email Rhiannon first. I’m all ready to do it, but it’s one in the morning back on the East Coast, so it’s not like she’s awake to get it, and the A part of me—wait, the A part is all of me, not just a part—isn’t sure it can write clearly right now.

  It’s ridiculous, but I run around that room with all the energy I’ve got. If something trips me up, I make the path wider. I am convinced this is a whole new way of decorating a room. I feel like a genius for inventing it. Also, I’m wearing myself out. I’m getting pretty tired. Ordinarily, I’d go get some coffee now. But I abstain. Because my parents are definitely still up, later than they usually are. But also because I know I have to be in bed by midnight.

  I brush my teeth so hard the gums bleed. I use at least three cups of mouthwash before the blood is gone. I don’t want to sleep with a bloody mouth. Then I get into my pajamas and make my way into bed, and while the list of things I’ve done today is far longer than most people’s, I’m also aware of all the things I haven’t done, like write to Rhiannon, which was the only thing I wanted to do, really, but sometimes the body is just too tricky and it knows how to get to the mind, more so now than at any point in history, and I am angry at my body even as it prepares itself for my departure, as it shows the most mercy it’s shown all day by letting me sleep, letting me sleep, letting me sleep.

  Someone: Hello

  M: Hi

  Someone: So what do you mean, that you’re in different bodies?

  M: I mean exactly that.

  X

  I wonder at what point human beings will stop needing bodies in order to live. I wonder if historians of the future will look back on this time as the period of the great divorce. Pity the people of mere decades ago, who needed to go to the bank for their money, the grocery store for their food, the shady theater for their titillation, the bar for a conversation. Now all you need is a finger, a brain, and a computer—and even the finger is arguable. I can satisfy all my needs and urges without venturing outside. My identity walks the wires for me, all around the world. The body is now the afterthought. The birthplace, not the home.

  The fact that I know this gives me an advantage. The people who are nostalgic for their bodies, who think their bodies can save them from the anonymity that is being thrust upon them—

  They have already lost, and they don’t even know it.

  A

  Day 6101

  I’m on the floor, but I have a blanket and a pillow. I’ve wrapped the blanket around me like it’s a sleeping bag. But it’s not a sleeping bag.

  I am at the foot of the bed. I sit up and look in the bed and see a man, a woman, and two boys younger than me. My parents and my brothers, still sleeping. By the lamplight coming in around the room’s single shade, I can tell we’re in a motel. The furniture is shabby, the rug worn. I can hear a faucet dripping in the bathroom. There are five trash bags in a line by the door, as if they’re waiting to go outside. But quickly I realize it’s not garbage inside. It’s everything we have.

  It’s six in the morning and I’m not supposed to be up yet.

  My head itches.

  I try to go back to sleep.

  * * *

  —

  I’m woken about a half hour later by a hand that reaches down from the bed and shakes my shoulder. I’m not entirely sure whether I’m asleep or awake—I’ve drifted away from life, but not into anywhere else.

  It’s my mother waking me, and she’s hurrying me because I get first shower and have to be quick. When I turn the light on in the bathroom, I swear I hear the insects scatter. The water pressure is an ungenerous trickle, and when I quickly get out, both of the towels are still damp from the day before. As I pat myself as dry as I can get, I discover that my name is Joe and my family’s lived here for over two months after getting kicked out of our apartment. I also realize that I was supposed to bring new clothes from my garbage bag into the bathroom with me. When I walk out in a towel, my brothers think it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever seen. One of them jumps into the bathroom and locks the door while I’m still digging for underwear, so I have to change in the hall that isn’t really a hall. The hall is what’s outside.

  Joe might be used to this, but I’m not. I have no idea if Joe feels sorry for himself, but I feel sorry that he has to live like this.

  Even though I’m just out of the shower, my head still itches. As one brother bolts out of the bathroom and the next one bolts in, I can see my mom noticing my scratching. I try to stop doing it. But the more I think about not doing it, the more I have to do it. It feels like something’s crawling in there. I scrape against my scalp and expect something to come
back on my fingers.

  “Stop that,” my mother says. She opens her trash bag, reaches in, and fishes out a red knit cap with hearts all over it. “Here,” she tells me, handing it over. “Wear this.”

  I don’t understand how a hat’s going to make me stop itching. And I must look confused, because she says, “Just keep it on, okay? And don’t itch. If you’re itching, they’ll send you home. And you know I can’t be home today. I’ll see if Renee has any of that shampoo. It’ll be fine. But don’t get sent home. If you keep the hat on, no one will know.”

  Now I’m sure I have lice, and my hair is full of phantom crawling. I’m not sure the hat will keep that in.

  My mother knocks on the bathroom door, and my second brother opens it, wet-headed but dressed.

  “Don’t miss the bus,” she tells us all. Then, when our backpacks have been retrieved from under the bed, she tells each of us she loves us, and wishes us a good day.

  As the oldest, I figure I’m the leader. My brothers, Jesse and Jarid, think the hat is hysterical, but I ignore them. I access the location of the bus stop and start heading there, until Jarid stops me and says, “Hey, what about Jasmine?” I don’t even have time to ask who that is, because a voice from across the parking lot says, “Yeah, what about me?” I see a girl about my age coming our way. She looks right at my head and says, “I do not want to know what that’s about.” Then she leads us to the bus stop, like Wendy commandeering the Lost Boys.

  It’s only when we’re waiting for the bus that I think of Rhiannon. I feel for my phone in my pocket, but of course there isn’t any phone in my pocket, and I doubt there will be one in my backpack. Hopefully there will be a computer at school. I remember I set up a new email—but then I can’t recall what it was. I can remember the barrage of thoughts I had, but none of them are particularly distinct. I remember running in circles around my room. I remember the look on the guidance counselor’s face as I straightened her frames. But I can’t remember what was in those frames. I can’t remember the furniture I was running around.

  “Come on, Joe,” Jasmine says. I look up and it’s a city bus, not a school bus, that’s here. Jasmine takes out a bus pass, and I find one in my pocket, too. My brothers follow.

  We don’t talk on the bus. We just look tiredly out at the buildings we pass, stare at the other people on the bus until we realize we’re staring. Jasmine closes her eyes, and for a second I think she’s asleep. But when she opens them up again, I can tell she was closing her eyes in order to think.

  When she rings the bell to make the bus stop, I stand to go. When we’re off the bus, I follow her to school. My brothers go to one building and Jasmine and I go to another. When we get inside, I start to head for my locker, but stop when Jasmine chastises me and tells me I need to get breakfast.

  I follow her to the cafeteria, where eggs are being scooped from a vat and garnished with a slice of white toast. At the end of the line, there’s a bowl of fruit; Jasmine takes an apple and hands me an orange. Then we sit down to eat, and as we do, she stares at my face so long that I’m worried there are bugs crawling down from my hair.

  “What?” I say.

  “Nothing,” she tells me.

  The cafeteria isn’t like a lunchtime cafeteria—there can’t be more than two dozen of us here, and everyone’s keeping to themselves…or at least they are until two guys come to our table. Theo and Stace. Stace has already eaten half his allotment of eggs, and they’re in the middle of an argument as they sit down.

  “I’m telling you,” Stace says, “there’s cheese in there. They definitely put cheese in. These are cheesy eggs, man.”

  “There’s no cheese in here. There’s barely eggs.”

  Stace takes another big forkful. “Don’t be a hater. This shit’s good. Cheesy good.”

  “No cheese. None.”

  “Fuck you. There is.”

  Theo looks to Jasmine for help. “Will you please tell this fool that there isn’t any cheese in these eggs?”

  “There could be,” she says. “Who knows?”

  I’m taking a bite now, and I think maybe there’s cheese. But then I take another bite and I’m not that sure.

  “You taste it, right?” Stace asks me.

  And because for some reason I’m liking Stace more than Theo, I say, “Yeah, I taste it. It’s almost like a gouda.”

  Stace, Theo, and Jasmine all look at me then.

  “What the fuck are you talking about—a gouda?” Theo says.

  “Are you making fun of me?” Stace adds, hurt.

  “I don’t think he is,” Jasmine says. Then she looks at me and says, “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?”

  * * *

  —

  I can barely concentrate in class. Now my head isn’t just itchy, it’s starting to sweat hard. It gets to the point that I have to sit on my hands to prevent myself from scratching myself into an obvious frenzy. The worst is when I imagine the lice marching down my neck, down my back, jumping onto the ground, walking up everyone else’s legs.

  Only one teacher, my English teacher, asks me to take off the hat.

  “Ma’am, I can’t,” I say. “Please.”

  I’m pleading, and she hears it. She lets me keep it on.

  I plan to go to the library to use the computers at lunch. But there aren’t any computers. There isn’t even a library.

  “When did they get rid of the library?” I ask Jasmine over our pizza squares at lunch.

  “When people stopped caring about us” is all she’ll answer.

  I scratch my scalp then, through the hat. She sees me doing it, but doesn’t say anything.

  She reminds me of Rhiannon, even though she doesn’t look anything like Rhiannon. I am seeing right inside, and that’s what looks like Rhiannon. I wonder if Joe sees her like this, too. At the end of lunch, she makes sure that all the homework she has to hand in is at the front of her bag, and she makes me do the same thing, possibly to make sure I’ve done it. At the end, I thank her, and she doesn’t look like it’s too out of the ordinary for him to thank her. Which gives me hope that Joe might, in fact, recognize what’s going on.

  * * *

  —

  By seventh period, my head is unbearable. I reach under the hat to scratch, and come back with a small black bug pressed under my fingernail. I know I should go to the school nurse, but I heed my mother’s warning about being sent home. I wait until the end of the day, when being sent home won’t be a big deal—but then I worry that they’ll say I can’t come back tomorrow. Also, I figure I have to pick up Jesse and Jarid.

  I find Jasmine after school and figure she’ll be coming back with us, but she reminds me she has a newspaper to “put to bed,” and while I think of a few stupid things I could say about putting a newspaper to bed, I don’t say any of them, because it’s clear that she’s stressed by the deadline and is taking whatever she has to do very seriously. I also don’t say I’m going to miss her, because I’m guessing that’s not something Joe would say, because he’s so used to seeing her every day. But I do miss her as Jesse, Jarid, and I make our way back home. When we get to the motel room, our mother still isn’t home and our father looks like he’s in the same position we left him in, asleep. Only his clothes are different, which might mean he left the room and worked, or might mean he got up intending to leave but then decided against it. Whatever the case, my brothers stay silent around him, not wanting to wake the bear.

  It’s only three in the afternoon, and I can’t imagine spending the remaining waking hours still in this claustrophobic room and its claustrophobic silence.

  “Come on,” I tell Jesse and Jarid. “Let’s go somewhere. Bring your homework.”

  When we’re back out in front of the motel, I ask them if there’s a park nearby. From their reaction, you’d think I’d asked them for a stairway to the m
oon. I ask them where the nearest library is, and this time they shrug. I try to find one in my memories, but only get a blank. I look into the motel office, but there’s no one behind the counter, and I’m also worried about calling too much attention to us, especially with the hat on. I’m sure Jasmine would know, but Jasmine’s not here. I start us walking, and instead of finding a library, I find a Burger King. I don’t have any money, so food isn’t exactly an option, but I sit us down in a booth anyway and figure if we’re doing homework, no one will ask us to leave. This ends up being true, but it’s hard for me to keep Jesse and Jarid focused, especially when there are so many people eating hamburgers and fries around them. The breaking point comes when someone leaves their tray on a table near us, with a handful of fries still on it. Jarid spies this, and without missing a beat, goes over and retrieves the tray. Jesse cheers and I decide I’m not going to stop them. Instead of shoving the fries down with abandon, they treat each fry like a separate delicacy. It’s like they’re tasting each grain of salt before they swallow.

  I’m amused by this, but then someone who looks perilously like a manager comes over to us, decidedly unamused.

  “I’m afraid you can’t do that,” he scolds, reaching for the tray. Jarid clamps down to keep it.

  “Let go of that,” the manager orders. And there’s something about the way he’s talking to a ten-year-old that makes me snap.

  “You need to let go of that,” I tell him. “My brother hasn’t done anything wrong, and if you don’t stop harassing him, I am going to call your superiors at your home office and lodge a complaint. You can’t steal something that has no owner, and when my brother procured those French fries, they were sitting in a state entirely devoid of ownership. I understand that you think you are just doing your job, but I have a feeling that if I sought clarification about what that job was, verbally beating up on elementary schoolers would not be a part of it.”