Jim & Me

by Dan Gutman

  “Did you think about what I asked you?” Bobby said as soon as he recognized my voice.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “Come on over.”

  5

  That Old Tingling Sensation

  WHEN BOBBY SHOWED UP AT OUR FRONT DOOR A FEW minutes later, he had a backpack slung over one shoulder.

  “Look,” I told him, “this isn’t going to be an overnight thing, okay? We’re going to meet Jim Thorpe and come right back. It will be 15 minutes, tops. In and out. You got that?”

  “Relax, Stoshack,” Bobby said. “I like to have my stuff with me in case of an emergency.”

  I poked his backpack. “What’ve you got in there, anyway?”

  “Hey, get your paws off!” Bobby said. “It’s my meds, okay? Yeah, I’m ADD. I’m screwed up in the head. Are you happy now, Stoshack?”

  Well, I knew he was screwed up in the head, but lots of kids have ADD without being psychos.

  “The backpack will be a dead giveaway that we’re from the future,” I told him. “Kids didn’t have backpacks in the old days. We’ll want to blend in, not stand out like a couple of freaks.”

  “You said it would be 15 minutes,” Bobby argued. “What’s the big deal?”

  Man, I hate Bobby Fuller. Something about him always brings out the worst in me. Everything he says just makes me mad. It’s the same for him about me, I suppose.

  I led Bobby into the living room. My mom was still puttering around the kitchen and I could see her peeking at us through the doorway.

  “A little privacy, please?” I said.

  Instead of doing what I asked, Mom came and plopped right in the middle of the couch, patting the cushions on either side of her. Bobby and I sat down.

  “I just want you boys to know that I expect you to be on your very best behavior,” she said. “That means no fighting, no swearing, no drinking, and nothing illegal. You’ve got to try to get along with each other. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mom,” I said.

  “Yes, Mrs. Stoshack,” Bobby said.

  “And be careful!”

  “We will,” we promised.

  She was probably remembering the time I took her back to 1863 and we landed in a graveyard, with bullets and shells exploding all around us. She wasn’t too happy about that.

  Mom went back to the kitchen and returned holding two brown paper lunch bags. One was marked BOBBY and the other was marked JOEY.

  “In case you need a snack,” she said before hurrying upstairs.

  It was quiet in the house. Uncle Wilbur had already gone to sleep. Bobby and I sat on the couch. I put my mom’s silly lunch bags aside. No way was I taking them with us.

  “What do I have to do?” Bobby asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I do the work. You got the card?”

  “Yeah,” he said, pulling it out of his pocket. I had him put it on the coffee table instead of in my hand. As soon as I touch a card, it sets the wheels in motion for me to go back in time. I wanted to be sure I was ready.

  “Okay,” I said, “hold my hand.”

  “What?!” Bobby exclaimed. “Are you kidding? Forget it, Stoshack! I’m not holding hands with you.”

  “What’s your problem?” I said, not really wanting to know the answer.

  “I’m not holding hands with a guy,” he said.

  “Look, I don’t particularly want to hold hands with you either,” I said. “But I can only take somebody with me if we’re holding hands. It’s sort of like completing an electrical circuit.”

  “It’s stupid, is what it is,” Bobby said.

  “Fine,” I told him. “Don’t hold hands. I guess we’re not going to meet Jim Thorpe after all.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Bobby.

  He took my hand like he was picking up somebody’s used tissue.

  “Oh, wait a minute!” I said, pulling it away.

  Suddenly I realized I had forgotten something crucially important—a pack of new baseball cards. Just as an old baseball card would take me to the past, I would need a new baseball card to get me back to the present day. If I went back in time without some new cards, I would have no way to get home. I’d be stuck in the past forever.

  I bounded upstairs two steps at a time and fished around in my desk until I found a new pack of cards. Then I went back down to the living room. Bobby rolled his eyes.

  “Our return ticket,” I said, showing him the cards before sticking them in my back pocket.

  “You ready now?” Bobby asked. “Let’s blow this pop stand.”

  Bobby took my hand again and I picked the Thorpe card up off the table. It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t even checked the year of the card. I usually try to research where I’m going before I get there. No time for that now. Oh, well, it would only be 15 minutes anyway.

  “What’s supposed to happen?” Bobby asked.

  “Be patient.”

  “Nothing’s happening,” Bobby said after a few seconds.

  “Close your eyes,” I instructed him. “You’ll see.”

  “How can I see if I close my eyes?” he asked.

  “Shhhh,” I said. “Relax. I need to concentrate.”

  I closed my eyes and thought about Jim Thorpe. Soon I started feeling the slightest tingling sensation in my fingertips.

  “Hey, I think I feel something,” Bobby said.

  “That means it’s working,” I whispered.

  The tingles buzzed the fingers of my left hand, which were holding the card. I held it tightly so I wouldn’t drop it. After a few seconds, I could feel the tingling sensation moving up my wrist and along my arm. It reminds me of a cat’s purring.

  It was getting stronger, like a wave moving toward the shore.

  The tingles washed across my chest and down my legs.

  There was no stopping it now.

  I couldn’t drop the card if I wanted to.

  I could feel my body getting lighter.

  Molecule by molecule, I was vanishing from the present day.

  My whole body was vibrating.

  I wanted so badly to open my eyes and watch myself disappear, but I didn’t dare.

  And then, finally, the wave crashed against the sand. We were gone.

  6

  Wrong Place, Wrong Time

  “WATCH OUT!” BOBBY SCREAMED.

  I opened my eyes just in time to see a ball flying right at my head. But it wasn’t a baseball. It was about the size of a beach ball. It was black, and it was hanging from a long rope.

  Bobby gave me a shove and knocked me over. The ball missed my ear by an inch or two and slammed into a concrete wall behind us. The wall toppled over with a crash, sending pieces of concrete and dust everywhere. I shielded my eyes in case anything else was going to come flying in my direction.

  “Are you okay?” I asked Bobby.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “Where are we?”

  I looked around, but all I could see were rocks and dirt and rubble everywhere. Oh, no. We must have landed in the middle of another war. But which one?

  Then I saw a sign off to my right:

  FUTURE SITE OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY HOSPITAL

  Scheduled for completion January 1, 1932

  It wasn’t a war. We had landed in the middle of a construction site. The ball that had come flying at me was a wrecking ball. They were knocking something down and building a hospital.

  Bobby Fuller, of all people, had saved my life.

  “You screwed up, Stoshack!” he yelled, brushing the dust off his pants.

  “Don’t blame me!” I yelled right back. “This was your stupid idea.”

  I had to figure this thing out. Jim Thorpe had been in the 1912 Olympics. We were probably in 1931, so it was probably long after his athletic career was over. He had to be retired by now. We messed up somehow. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  I looked at Bobby’s Jim Thorpe card, which was still in my hand. I wished I had examined the card more closely before using it. It didn’t l
ook like the style of the cards that were printed at the beginning of the twentieth century. Now, I realized, the card wasn’t an original from Jim Thorpe’s playing days. It was one of those reprints they issue years later. I have some of them in my collection. This one must have been printed in 1931.

  “I know what happened,” I told Bobby.

  “What?”

  “I can’t just use any old baseball card,” I told him. “I have to use one from the year I’m trying to get to. I always travel back to the year on the card. This card is a reprint from 1931.”

  “Now you tell me!” Bobby shouted. “How was I supposed to know that? Do you think I’m a mind reader?”

  “Oh, shut up!” I said. Man, was he annoying.

  “You shut up!” Bobby replied. “Let’s get out of here before we get killed.”

  Fine with me. I had better things to do with my time than hang around construction sites in 1931 with Bobby Fuller. I pulled out the new pack of baseball cards I’d stashed in my jeans pocket so we could go home.

  I was about to rip open the wrapper when I realized something. Even though the reprint card had taken us to the wrong year, it was still a Jim Thorpe card. So that meant that Jim Thorpe had to be somewhere nearby. Bobby could still meet him. That was all he said he wanted to do in the first place.

  “Wait a minute,” I said suddenly.

  “What’s your lame idea now, Stoshack?”

  Shoving the cards back in my pocket, I explained the situation to Bobby as I looked around. There were some men in the distance digging with shovels and pouring cement. I saw one guy with his back to us digging a hole in the ground. He was about 50 yards away.

  “Maybe that guy can tell us where Jim Thorpe is,” I told Bobby.

  “You’re nuts,” he replied. “These guys are just construction workers. Let’s go home.”

  I walked over to the guy who was shoveling dirt; Bobby followed me. I guess he figured he’d better stick close to me or I might leave him there.

  The guy with the shovel was stripped to the waist and his body was shiny with sweat. He looked to be about six feet tall. The muscles in his arms were huge. When he turned to face us, I could see he was a little chubby around the middle. His hair was jet-black, and it flopped over his forehead. He was about forty, I guessed.

  “What are you boys doing here?” the guy asked as we approached him. He leaned on his shovel and wiped his face with a rag. “This is a dangerous area.”

  “Excuse me, mister,” I said, “but can you tell us where we might find Jim Thorpe?”

  “Jim Thorpe?” the guy asked. “What for?”

  “My friend here wants to meet him,” I said.

  “He’s my great-grandfather,” added Bobby.

  The guy looked Bobby up and down. “You’re barkin’ up the wrong tree, son. Jim Thorpe doesn’t have a great-grandson. He doesn’t even have any grandchildren.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “Because I’m Jim Thorpe.”

  I took a closer look at the guy. He had small brown eyes that nearly disappeared when he squinted at the sun. He had high cheek bones. His skin was a shade darker than mine. But he didn’t look like an Indian. At least, he didn’t look like the Indians I’d seen in movies and on TV. It could have been a suntan, from working outside all day.

  “You’re Jim Thorpe?” I asked in astonishment. “The same Jim Thorpe who won the decathlon in the 1912 Olympics?”

  “And the pentathlon.”

  “Why are you working here?” I asked.

  I didn’t mean to be rude. There’s nothing wrong with being a construction worker. But I was used to famous athletes making beer commercials and signing autographs at card shows after their playing days were over. I just didn’t think a superstar like Jim Thorpe would be shoveling dirt.

  “Lots of men would give their right arm for this job,” Thorpe said.

  That’s when it clicked. 1931. It was the Depression! I remembered when I traveled back in time with my dad to see if Babe Ruth really called his famous “called shot” home run. That was in 1932. There were people all over the streets begging for work and begging for food, struggling to survive.

  Bobby Fuller took a step forward.

  “Mr. Thorpe,” he said, “you probably won’t believe this, but we came from the future. I really am your great-grandson—or will be, in the twenty-first century.”

  Jim shook Bobby’s hand, looking him square in the eye.

  “The Aymara tribe of the high Andes sees the future as behind them and the past as ahead of them,” he said. “The past is known, so man sees it in front of him. But man cannot know the future, so he believes it is behind him, where it cannot be seen.”

  “That’s whacked,” said Bobby.

  Jim Thorpe stared at Bobby, a puzzled look on his face.

  “Son, what kind of a knot do you tie when you rope a calf?” Jim asked.

  “I don’t know,” Bobby said.

  “How many feet apart do you plant rows of corn?” Jim asked.

  “Uh…five?” Bobby guessed.

  “Tell me what you know about the Black Hawk War,” Jim said.

  “Never heard of it,” Bobby admitted.

  Jim sighed, and shook his head sadly.

  “You are no relative to me,” he said. “I don’t care what century you come from.”

  “But—”

  “I am a descendant of Black Hawk,” Jim said, “leader of the Sac and Fox Nation. A century ago, he fought a great battle. Five hundred Indians against twelve thousand United States soldiers. The white men captured Black Hawk, took our land, and slaughtered hundreds of our tribe. Women and children too. I will never forget what happened to my people.”

  At that moment, a voice called from the other end of the construction site.

  “Thorpe!” a man yelled. “Slacking off again? You lazy Indian! Get back to work or go home! There are plenty of able-bodied men waiting to take your place.”

  Jim took his shovel and jammed it hard into the dirt. “I wish we could talk more, but…”

  “Thorpe!” his boss yelled again.

  Bobby and I said good-bye and found a quiet spot off to the side where we could sit down on a couple of cinder blocks. I pulled the new pack out of my pocket again and tore the wrapper off, plucking out one of the cards. I didn’t even look to see which player was on the front.

  Bobby took my hand without any protest this time. We closed our eyes and I concentrated on going home. Back to Louisville. Back to my century.

  Soon the tingling sensation started and I breathed a sigh of relief. It was working. The buzzing feeling went up my arms and down my legs. It got stronger and stronger, and then I felt myself disappear.

  7

  One Mississippi, Two Mississippi…

  WE LANDED IN A GRASSY FIELD. THAT WAS STRANGE. Usually when I come home, I come home. Like, to my bedroom.

  “Where are we?” I asked Bobby Fuller, who had tumbled to the ground next to me.

  “Sheppard Park,” Bobby said. “I play football here sometimes.”

  The field was perfect for football—flat and rectangular with no bushes or trees in the way. In fact, there were four boys tossing a football around. They looked to be about our age. I didn’t know them, but Bobby said a couple of them went to his church.

  “Hey Fuller,” one of the guys hollered, “you and your friend wanna play some touch? With you two, we can play three-on-three.”

  “We have school tomorrow,” I whispered to Bobby. “It’s getting late.”

  The truth is, I didn’t want to play. Football is not my game. I was never any good at it. Like I said, my hands are small, and I don’t like guys chasing me around, knocking me down. I like to stand in a batter’s box and take my three swings.

  “Sure!” Bobby yelled to the guys. “Lemme see the ball.”

  Man, I hate Bobby Fuller. I felt like walking off and leaving, but I didn’t want to look like a wimp.

  “I’m no good,”
I said, following Bobby as he jogged over to join them. “I can’t throw a football. Can’t catch it either.”

  “We’ll put you on the line,” Bobby told me.

  We divided into two teams of three guys each. I was on a team with Bobby and this skinny black kid named Reggie.

  “You guys kick off,” Reggie yelled to the other team, and the three of us dropped back to receive.

  “Let me and Reggie handle the ball,” Bobby said. “You block.”

  Fine by me. I didn’t want to run with the ball anyway.

  One of the kids on the other team kicked off. It was high, end-over-end, and deep. Reggie dropped back to catch it. He took a few steps and lateraled the ball to Bobby. The other team was charging downfield toward us. I got into position to block.

  “Go left, Stoshack!” Bobby yelled from behind me.

  I did what he told me. I got about ten yards before some guy creamed me from the side. They tagged Bobby right there.

  “Okay, okay!” Bobby said, clapping his hands. “First down from here. You okay, Stoshack?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  I got up slowly. I’ve been in plenty of collisions playing baseball before, but nothing like this. When you’re rounding third and there’s a throw coming to the plate, you know you’re going to crash into the catcher and try to knock the ball loose. You can anticipate it and protect yourself. In football, some guy can come out of nowhere and flatten you.

  We huddled up. Bobby and Reggie worked out a play where Reggie was going to run downfield ten yards, then fake left and cut right, where Bobby would hit him with the pass. My job was to hike the ball when Bobby said the word “provolone” and then protect him from the rush.

  “Cheddar!” Bobby yelled. “Monterey Jack! Swiss! Provolone!”

  I hiked the ball to Bobby. He dropped back.

  “One Mississippi…two Mississippi…three Mississippi…” said the guy on the other side of the line.

  Reggie ran his pass pattern and Bobby whipped a perfect spiral into his hands. Reggie got tagged right there.

  “All right! All right!” Bobby yelled, clapping as he marched upfield. He and Reggie slapped hands.