Tracers

by J. J. Howard

  He hadn’t locked his bike. The lock lay on the ground, but the new bike was history.

  Cam sat down on the curb.

  He sat still for a long time, thinking about everything he’d found that day—everything that was now gone.

  To be honest, he wasn’t thinking all that much about the bike. Which was the stupidest part of all.

  • • •

  Since his own carelessness had cost him his new bike before he’d managed even a full day of runs, Cam knew he was down to his last couple of options.

  Angie’s neighbor Karl had made it pretty clear he was interested in Cam’s tools, so on his way back home Cam left a message with the guy’s wife.

  Karl showed up at dusk and asked to take a look. “Thought you weren’t keen on selling,” he said, in his deliberate way. He pawed through the tools, even though he’d already seen them all. He was probably making sure they were all there.

  “Yeah, well, circumstances changed,” Cam told him. “Price is six.”

  “Sorry about that. Your circumstances, I mean. Well, you know I want ’em. But my wife won’t let me go over four.”

  Cam sighed. “My rent is five-fifty.”

  Karl met his eyes. He nodded slowly. “Deal.”

  As Karl counted out the money in twenties, he looked over at the GTO. “So about those circumstances of yours . . . you any closer to selling her?”

  Cam felt his jaw tighten and he shook his head. “I told you—it was my dad’s. I’m gonna have to hold on to it.”

  Karl bent to pick up Cam’s—now his—tools. “Too bad. Nice car. Well, you know where to find me,” Karl told him, and walked back out of the garage.

  Cam watched Karl’s retreating figure disappear. He looked back over at the GTO, thinking how stupid it was that he was even keeping it—now that he no longer even had the tools to fix it.

  For some reason he just couldn’t let go. Cam walked outside and sat down on the edge of the sidewalk as darkness fell over the neighborhood. People came home from work and disappeared into houses. He could smell various suppers being cooked up and down the block.

  People with families lived here, mostly. Like he used to have.

  Cam closed his eyes, remembering. There had been a time when things were good. Before his dad got sent up. Before his mom got sick. He remembered, once, his dad taking him for a drive, all the way out to Coney Island. They’d stopped for ices, and sat on a bench overlooking the water, and his dad had talked to him, almost like Cam was all grown up. His father had talked about his dreams—how he planned to take Cam and his mother away. How one day they’d pack up the GTO and drive all day and night, and land in a new place, one where things would be better.

  That drive was the closest they ever got to a road trip.

  Instead, a few weeks later, his dad pulled a robbery not five blocks from their apartment, and when the clerk didn’t cooperate, his father shot him.

  Cam had pictured that last job his dad pulled so many times, he almost believed he’d actually been there. He could see the too-bright fluorescent lights of the store reflected in everyone’s faces, washing them out, making them look sick. He imagined the way the old clerk’s hands must have shaken as he opened the cash drawer. Maybe that tremor was what allowed his father to notice when the clerk tried to hit the silent alarm. Cam closed his eyes, imagining the fear blooming in the clerk’s chest as he realized Cam’s father had just pulled the trigger. The fear and terror of the poor guy’s final moments of life. The blood.

  Cam had often wondered why, when he imagined the scene, it was never from his father’s point of view. Instead, he always thought of that poor old guy who’d probably just been trying to keep his job. He opened his eyes. It was full dark now; everyone was home. The houses were shut up tight.

  By the time he stood up, his legs were stiff and his head ached. He walked inside the garage, alone.

  Alone, like always. He’d let himself daydream about a girl he didn’t even know, and he knew now that it had been a mistake. A guy like him, with no luck, was never going to find her for a third time.

  He couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe she’d crashed into his life for a reason, though—other than reminding him how freaking lonely he was.

  Maybe it had been so he could learn about parkour. So he could have something to fill up the miserable empty hours not spent at work or sleeping.

  Cam stayed up late, watching videos on his phone, visiting the parkour artists’ forums—that was one thing he’d learned, that a lot of people said it was an art, not a sport. He also learned the names of more of the moves; he read about the history of the movement.

  No matter what he saw and read, Cam kept thinking: I could do that. He’d spent countless hours learning and practicing karate when he was younger, and he’d started getting into jujitsu when his mom got sick. He had to give up lessons—too expensive. And if you weren’t a student, you couldn’t use the gym. But in parkour, the city was your gym. It was perfect.

  When his phone was almost out of juice, Cam plugged it into the charger and lay down. He drifted off to sleep, excited about tomorrow for a change.

  FOUR

  THE NEXT MORNING, Cam discovered that parkour was nowhere near as easy as Nikki and the others had made it look.

  For the first couple of days, Cam kept telling himself he’d get better, and thinking about his friend Ryan from middle school. Ryan had shown up on the subway one day toting a long, battered black case. The two of them usually rode to school together. Usually, neither of them carried much of anything on the train. They both got the government-sponsored free “lunch.” (Technically it was food, but Cam always thought it seemed kind of charitable to call it lunch.) Neither of them ever carried too many books home. But that day, there was Ryan with this huge case. His friend told him glumly that his mother was making him learn the trombone.

  Cam had laughed at him. Even by seventh grade, he’d learned to laugh at anyone who tried too hard at anything school related.

  But even though Ryan used to laugh with him at people who actually tried, he had learned to play that trombone. Cam went over to his place after school sometimes when his mom worked late. There was always snack food in Ryan’s kitchen. But the downside, post-trombone, was that Ryan had started obsessively practicing. At first, it sounded like someone was torturing a cat.

  Then one day, a couple of years later, Cam was in ninth or tenth grade, sitting bored in an assembly, and Ryan had stood up with a couple of other band guys. He and Ryan had drifted apart and stopped hanging out after they started high school. Cam hadn’t heard him torture that trombone in years. The performance started with a solo from Ryan, and Cam sat up in shock, listening—the sound coming out of that instrument was now definitely music. He’d been so surprised he’d nearly fallen out of his chair. Cam even hung around after the assembly and told Ryan he’d done a nice job. His old friend had looked very surprised, but pleased.

  As Cam took his first painful stabs at parkour, he thought about Ryan. About how his friend obsessively practiced, even when he sounded like utter garbage. He’d kept at it, until all the notes flowed together and sounded like music. And that was what Cam vowed he was going to do.

  He started small—focusing on tic-tacs off the wall outside Lafayette Messenger. He kept pushing for more height, and sometimes he wiped out.

  At a low point, lying on the ground with pieces of asphalt digging into his back, both his knees scraped all to hell, Cam reflected that at least the trombone didn’t cause physical injury. But still he kept at it.

  He took the subway uptown to a strip of Riverside Park that was always empty. For a small section of the park, the benches were lined up perfectly for him to leap from one to the next. He only bit it once, tasting the metal of the bench, giving himself a fat lip that lasted for two days. As he kept practicing, his body started to hurt less. Hi
s movements started to flow.

  Instead of being just a bunch of awkward, unrelated moves, everything started to connect.

  Almost like music.

  The scraped palms and knees, the fat lip, the aching muscles—all of it was worth it. Because even though the girl was gone, and the bike was gone, there was still the city. And now he could see it clearly for what it actually was.

  A gigantic playground.

  Parkour, tracing, whatever you wanted to call it, was perfect for him, because it required nothing: no companions, no gear, just muscles and nerves. And a complete ability to, as Angie put it, “jump around like somebody with no health insurance shouldn’t even think of doing.” When Cam started jumping off the roof of the garage and practicing wall tricks on the side of her house, Angie would hustle Joey inside before he got any ideas.

  • • •

  Lonnie, the prince of Lafayette Messenger Service, had rescued Cam from his bikeless state with a garbage loaner bike. It might have felt like charity—except that Cam knew he was Lonnie’s fastest rider, so it wasn’t a completely selfless act. At least Lonnie didn’t give him too much crap about losing two bikes in a week.

  Even with the loaner bike, Cam was racing through his deliveries faster than usual, so he could get back to practicing his moves. When he looked around the city now, he saw everything with new eyes. Every object could be used to give him momentum as he practiced: vaulting, leaping, sprinting. He still lost his footing occasionally, and had a few falls. But every day he got stronger, more precise.

  He started showing up at Washington Square Park too, working out with the kids who trained there. It wasn’t an official jam—a meet-up of tracers—but he saw the same people every day, started learning a few new tricks.

  For six days, he spent every spare moment practicing. On Sunday, he had the whole day free to train, and he spent most of it at the park. By the time dusk rolled around, Cam had already put in a long day, but he kept at it. Everyone else had probably gone home to eat dinner, but Cam kept vaulting over the high stone railing at the edge of the park, over and down, then sprinting back up again. When he finally nailed a perfect landing, he grinned and sat down on the steps, replaying the jump in his mind. Except in the imaginary version, she was there watching him. Acting impressed. Maybe showing some appreciation for his new skills . . .

  A motorcycle revved, catching Cam’s attention. The rider was stopped, pulled over at the edge of the park, his features indistinct, silhouetted with the setting sun behind him.

  The guy was watching him, though. Cam could feel it. There was something about him—something familiar. The stranger had noticed that Cam was looking at him; that much was clear. But he held his ground for another full minute before revving the bike again and tearing away.

  • • •

  The next day at work, Cam pedaled so fast he thought the loaner might not make it through the day; he wanted to get through with the boring stuff because he had a destination. As soon as he delivered his last package, Cam was planning to return to the parking garage where Nikki had led him.

  It was a good place to train. And, of course, there was a chance she might show up again. That would qualify as a bonus.

  When the workday was finally done, Cam rode the loaner out to the garage. He locked it up against a concrete pillar, then took off running, psyching himself up for the jump, his muscles humming, his mind clear. The mantra Nikki had taught him echoed in his head. He wasn’t looking at the line of cars, he was looking beyond them—where the cars weren’t—to the empty space where he would land. He pushed off hard, held his breath. And vaulted clear over the cars. The only sound was his breathing. No alarms. He’d cleared it, just like she had.

  Feeling a rush of something like joy, he kept running, didn’t slow down . . . and failed to see the gap between the levels. For a few seconds he was flying—though headed down, not up. He tensed his muscles, then relaxed, timing it all exactly right; again, he stuck the landing. Cam was grinning, his adrenaline pumping. He heard the word “nice” escape his lips, even though no one was around to appreciate what he’d just pulled off. He hopped on top of the elevator car, remembering Dylan’s trick, but then he heard a voice.

  “Somebody’s been practicing.”

  Cam let out an undignified squeak. Sure, he could jump over a line of cars, down two levels, and stick the landing, but Dylan saying three words, that turned him into a freaking mouse.

  Dylan was standing on the same level, on the other side of the garage. If he had heard the mouse squeak, he didn’t show it. He called over to Cam: “You should come work out with us.”

  Cam stared at him. Us. As in a group of people that included Nikki.

  “I never see you guys around,” he told Dylan, keeping his voice casual (and squeak free).

  Of course, it was completely not for lack of trying that he hadn’t seen them, but he wasn’t going to volunteer that information.

  Dylan shrugged. “We’re a tight group. Like to keep to ourselves.”

  Cam waited for him to continue, pretending he didn’t care whether or not he got the invite to train with them. He forced a shrug, but fake shrugging turned out to be more of a physical challenge than the two-story drop. Cam thought he saw Dylan smile—maybe he’d noticed the awkward hunchback moment—but his next words were a relief.

  “Loujaine floating terminal—in Brooklyn. You know it?”

  Cam nodded, tried hard not to grin. Then he realized he actually didn’t know the place. “No! I . . .” Just then, the elevator started moving downward.

  Dylan called down to him: “Gowanus Bay. Pier Twenty-One. See you tomorrow at dawn.”

  • • •

  Dawn took pretty much forever to arrive. Sleep was not happening. Part of the problem: he was afraid that if he did drift off, he might oversleep. He’d been known to sleep right through his alarm on more than one occasion. He knew if he blew off Dylan’s invite to train, he probably wouldn’t get another. So he lay with his phone right under his pillow, and checked it every half hour or so.

  The other reason he was wide-awake at three in the morning: stupidity. He would have felt embarrassed if anyone else knew just how excited he was to see Nikki again—to show her how much better he’d gotten. Cam knew she’d be impressed.

  Or at least he hoped she’d be impressed.

  The problem was, he’d pictured himself showing off his newfound skills for her so many times in his head, it had started to seem impossible that it would actually happen.

  In Cam’s experience, imagining something good equaled “never gonna happen.”

  He tossed and turned, dozing off and then hurtling awake again because he was tracing in his dreams. He kept waking up mid-fall, breathing hard.

  Cam fell asleep for real just before dawn. He dreamed about Nikki.

  This time they were at the beach—but not a dirty, sad strip of land like the beaches Cam had seen around New York. They were standing on some faraway shore with clean white sand glimmering in the sun. In the sunlight, Nikki’s eyes were the color of the sky.

  His alarm ripped him back to reality. He had turned the phone up to maximum volume, and set it on the most obnoxious sound possible. Cam fumbled for the phone in the dark, knocking it onto the floor. He swore, rolled out of bed, picked up the phone, grabbed his sweatshirt, and was out the door.

  For the whole long subway ride, Cam couldn’t sit still. The train was nearly empty, but an older woman sat beside him, glaring in annoyance at his bouncing leg before moving away from him. Cam ignored her. When he finally reached Pier 21, he forced himself to slow down from a sprint to a jog. He spotted the group waiting for him in front of an old chain-link fence.

  “Hey,” he said.

  Nikki’s eyes were on the pavement, her hood pulled over her head. Cam forced himself to focus on Dylan. Because Cam was being Mr. Casual.
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br />   Dylan gave him a nod. “This is Tate, and Jax.”

  Tate shook his hand, but Jax gave him a grin and offered a fist bump.

  “Cam.”

  “Oh, we know,” Jax told him, grinning.

  “How’s it going?” Tate said.

  “And that’s my sister, Nikki,” Dylan told Cam.

  Her head shot up. “We’ve already met,” she spit out. She turned on her heel, grabbing the chain-link fence and scrambling up the side. She then flipped over the fence and ran out of sight.

  “Okay . . .” Cam stared after her.

  “Show-off.” Jax nodded toward Nikki’s retreating figure.

  Dylan rolled his eyes, slid the gate open, and the rest of them walked through.

  So she really had been showing off.

  The ship was massive—it must have been a cargo ship once. But now, abandoned, it was just another part of the jungle gym. An awesome part, filled with jumps and obstacles (the good kind—not people, who mostly just got in the way). On the ship, it was just the five of them. The boys caught up to Nikki and stood in a circle.

  “So should I . . . ?” Cam looked at the others.

  “Just try and keep up,” Nikki told him, taking off fast again, vaulting and jumping from one level to the next without a pause. He grinned and took off after her.

  Cam counted five decks on the massive ship. The metal had once been painted white, but was now rusted through in most places. They began making their way up from the bottom level, but when they doubled back and dropped down, using the railing for leverage, Cam was surprised to find his landing cushioned by a pile of old mattresses.

  He was keeping up, Cam told himself as he ran, and it was mostly true. He wasn’t as graceful as the others, but, then again, this boat was theirs. It wasn’t until they all made a steep jump from a narrow perch on one side of the deck that Cam went down, hard.

  The others kept running, but one of the figures stopped, then turned back to wait for him. Maybe to check on him?