Tom Finder

by Martine Leavitt

  This was ridiculous. Perhaps whatever had made him lose his memory had caused some sort of brain damage as well. This time he forced his feet to stop at the stone stairs. He felt it. Gravity was pushing him away. Not just any old gravity, but high-density, collapsed-star-type gravity, the kind that squeezed all the food out of your stomach if there was any in it. He quickly walked away. He’d come back later.

  Tom got on an LRT train. He rode for a long time. He got off where he had started, in the downtown core. He rode another route for a couple of hours. He looked out the window at the houses, wondering who lived there, how they had picked that house in that spot. Each one was a hiding place, a place to be invisible, to do all your private acts. He rode standing up. He stared at the houses. Sometimes, if the curtains were open, he could see in, see children watching TV or people sitting at the table. They were just glimpses, like postcards.

  He felt a huge sadness inside, this big, empty, locked-out feeling, like everything good had to happen in a house, like all of life happened in houses and no one would let him in and he didn’t even know how to ask. He liked the little houses as well as the big ones. He would have been happy to call any one of them home, but none looked familiar.

  Just as the train headed into the core, a uniformed man approached Tom. Just feeling his eyes on him made Tom have to struggle for air.

  A black kid in the seat across the aisle said, “Uh-oh. Here come the Tallyman.”

  Tom looked blankly at the boy.

  “TC. Train cop,” the black kid said in a loud whisper without looking at him.

  TC was barrel-chested and big-bellied. He had a huge head and thick arms, but his legs were long and skinny. He looked like he should topple over, top-heavy. He stopped in front of Tom.

  “Ticket?”

  Tom had forgotten about tickets.

  He held out his hands and shrugged. The black kid sighed across the aisle as the train cop took a pen and book out of the inside pocket of his jacket.

  “Name?”

  “Tom.”

  “Tom what?”

  Tom shrugged.

  “Tom Shrug?” The man laughed at his own joke and looked around good-naturedly at the other passengers. “How old are you, Tom Shrug?”

  Tom shrugged again. TC stared. He glanced again at the other passengers and bit his pen with big yellow teeth.

  “You look about fourteen, fifteen? What’s your address?” He settled his face into a frown.

  Tom didn’t answer. Everyone on the train was looking at him. Being seen was making him nauseous. He was glad there was nothing inside his stomach.

  “Look kid, you cooperate, all you get is a fine. Give me trouble, and I can have you arrested. Now, where do you live?”

  “I forget,” Tom said. The black kid snickered.

  The train cop put his pen in its clip. “Forget to buy a ticket, too?”

  Tom nodded, relieved that the man understood.

  The train cop grabbed Tom’s collar and jerked him from his seat. “Come on, you little snot—”

  The black kid said, “Hey, Mr. Tallyman. Be cool.” He was smiling; his voice was cajoling.

  “Just let me do my job,” Train Cop said.

  “Look. Here, I pay the ticket,” the kid said.

  “Too late,” TC said. He pulled Tom by his shirt down the aisle. “At this point you’d have to pay his fine.”

  The black kid stood up. “Okay, Mr. Tallyman. Jus’ be easy on the cloth.” Standing, he came up to TC’s shoulder. TC ignored him and began dragging Tom off the train. Tom felt his shirt tear. TC seemed to defy gravity. His huge torso shouldn’t be able to balance on those long, wobbly legs, let alone pull Tom around like he weighed nothing.

  The black kid grabbed TC’s arm. “Man, what your badge number?”

  TC’s grip eased on Tom just for a moment, just long enough to push the kid, long enough for Tom to get away.

  He ran.

  He didn’t run—he raced!

  He must have been a track star in school—fast, fast, fast. Train Cop couldn’t catch him. What’s-your-name couldn’t catch him. How-old-are-you-where-do-you-live couldn’t catch him . . . maybe not even gravity itself . . .

  The black kid was running beside him, laughing and flapping his arms. Tom sped up and lost him. Lost him, and then Tom himself was safely lost and invisible again.

  Tom ran until his legs remembered they had died of malnutrition, and then he walked.

  He walked a long time among the downtown workers, his head just beneath the level of their gaze. Tom observed the way the downtown workers walked, straight-backed and purposeful. Most wore black and carried briefcases, both the men and the women. He liked to look at them. They looked fresh, as if they’d been wrapped in plastic wrap all night as they slept. He wondered what was in their briefcases. Maybe a ham sandwich or a chocolate bar. Most likely just papers, like in his backpack.

  Only one person looked at him. A girl, pale and rumpled and overweight, was standing near the Jigglety Bumps Daycare. From a distance she watched the mothers bringing their children to the daycare. She stared at each baby. Her face was intent, her eyes as hungry as his stomach. Then she turned her gaze to Tom. She saw him. Tom quickly walked away.

  If he were a Finder, like Samuel Wolflegs said, if there were any such thing, he would find himself food.

  And maybe a pen.

  Yeah. A pen. So he could write down his name, which was Tom, and that he was nice. Probably nice.

  Tom looked for a pen. What could it hurt? He was walking anyway. He looked in the cracks of the sidewalk and in the street gutter. He looked under the benches and around the bus shelters. He looked in the token flower beds and on the window ledges of the tall buildings. He looked under statues and peeked into garbage cans. There was no pen.

  That’s because it was in his hoodie pocket.

  He rubbed his stomach where it felt empty and sore, and he felt it in there.

  Weird.

  Tom took it out of his pocket and looked at it. It said, CALGARY OPERA. MOZART’S THE MAGIC FLUTE.

  Weird.

  Tom sat on a bench and pulled out the notebook and read again the notes on Mozart.

  Someone had scribbled in the margin—probably him—as if he were writing to another student: Eye balls are freeky, and Louise sizles, ouch, ouch, ouch, and This Mozart guy was real. Gonna see one of his opras. Opera, Tom thought. O–P–E–R–A.

  Tom thought for a moment about throwing the notes away, then changed his mind. Somehow they were important; somehow they connected him with his life before the Forgetting. Instead, on a fresh page, he wrote his name: Tom.

  He looked at it for a little while. He realized he could make up a last name if he wanted. He could write anything he wanted in that notebook. He could write 2 + 2 = 5 if he wanted. He could write a story about himself being a fine swimmer and a fast runner and a Finder. He could write a story about a prince, Prince Tom, who rescues a fair maiden . . .

  Tom wrote: Something happened to Tom, but that was the first thing he forgot. Too bad, because Tom, he was a nice guy.

  A dog sniffed at Tom’s shoes. He patted the dog’s head. He must be visible to animals. The dog must have been able to tell that Tom hadn’t been near food for a long time because he moped away. Tom thought of following him, of sharing whatever the dog could sniff out, then went back to looking at what he had just written in his notebook. His pen-lines were wobbly. His fingers were starting to die of starvation.

  He was about to write something else when he heard a screech of brakes in front of him, and a thud.

  A car had hit the dog. A man emerged halfway from his car, looked, and drove away.

  Tom shoved the notebook into his backpack and ran to kneel by the dog. He thought it might still be breathing.

  “It’s okay, dog,” he said, gently patting its side. He looked around and saw a pay phone. He didn’t have money, but he thought maybe 911 was free. He ran and dialed. He remembered 911; he just coul
dn’t remember exactly what it was for.

  “911.”

  “I’m not sure this is the number I should be calling, but there’s a dog run over, corner of . . . um . . . MacLeod and Seventh.”

  “The number you are calling from, sir?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a pay phone.”

  “We’ll contact the SPCA for you, sir. They’ll want to know what kind of dog it is.”

  “I don’t know.” He’d forgotten his dog species.

  “The SPCA will want to know what kind of dog it is, sir.”

  “I don’t know. Flat. A flat dog. It might still be alive.” Tom dropped the phone. He ran back to the dog. It was panting rapidly. Its back legs were lying at a wrong angle to the rest of its body. Its eyes were open, afraid.

  “Hey, boy. Someone’s coming,” Tom said gently. He thought he remembered how it felt to be run over by gravity, pressed flat and twitching. He thought he could remember that.

  In a little while a small crowd gathered, and soon after that a policeman tapped him on the shoulder.

  “You the one who made the crank call to 911?”

  “He’s still alive,” Tom said. He placed his hand on the dog’s head.

  “That’s what happens when you tackle the pavement,” the officer said. “Pavement always wins. Come with me, boy. The SPCA is coming, but we’re going to have to pay your parents a visit and get them to teach you the appropriate use of 911.”

  The dog raised its head, and Tom stood up.

  “Just leave the nice kid alone,” someone in the crowd said to the officer.

  Tom looked around. They were all looking at him. Seeing him. Suddenly, nausea hit his stomach like a fist. He swayed on his feet. No. Not nausea—hunger. He felt hungry with their eyes on him, and he was suddenly aware that his hair hadn’t been combed and his teeth were scummy.

  “Come on, kid. I’ll give you a ride home,” the officer said.

  “That’s okay,” Tom said, swallowing.

  “I insist.”

  “I don’t know where home is,” Tom said.

  The officer’s face closed over that. “Well, then, we’ll just have to go down to the station and see if we can’t help you remember.” Somehow it didn’t seem like a friendly offer.

  They were all looking at him, around him, and he was visible. He felt the skin on his scalp clench up.

  Tom ran. His feet and knees were dead of starvation, but his thighs worked, and he ran. He ran until his thighs died and the only thing left alive in him was his stomach, and it was crying.

  He leaned against a wall. It was him crying. He told himself it was for the dog, and he stopped as soon as he could.

  For one scary moment he thought he was forgetting his first name, too. He tore the notebook out of his backpack and opened it up. Tom. Nice guy. He stared at it until his breathing returned to normal. He pulled the pen out of his pocket. He looked closely at it. Besides the printing, the pen had a dragon on it, and a birdlike creature. He wanted to write something. He had to write something. He could write anything he wanted. But what? What?

  Tom wrote, Tom found food. He read it over several times, then put the pen and notebook in his backpack.

  He would have tried panhandling if he hadn’t needed to be invisible. He walked until the skyscrapers ended and the shops began: art stores, bookstores, banks, insurance brokers, real estate offices, law offices, boutiques, coffee shops. Tom stopped outside a fast-food chicken place. The smell almost pushed him over, but he knew people would look at him if he fell. He wondered whether it was considered robbery if you used a pen in your pocket to hold up a store. Tom thought for a while, then walked around the block and checked out the dumpster behind the store. A batch of burnt chicken lay among the other garbage. He glanced around. It was quiet there in between the dumpster and the wire fence. No one would see. He reached in.

  He had never tasted anything so delicious in his whole life. At least, not that he could remember.

  He’d found food.

  “Tom Finder,” he said aloud to himself between mouthfuls.

  Weird.

  Tom put down the chicken long enough to write Tom was a Finder in his notebook. He put the book away, along with three wings which he was going to save for later.

  He walked again. People looked at him if he stopped in one place very long. His stomach couldn’t tolerate that. He needed water. He walked until the shops turned into tiny dirty houses, and the small landscaped spaces between buildings became yards full of weeds and junked cars. Some of the houses had plastic sheeting instead of glass in the windows, and others had blankets for curtains. The roofs sagged like they were going to fall in. It seemed strange to Tom that the skyscrapers, which should be too heavy for the earth to hold up, rose up as light as foil and bubble, defying gravity, while these little houses sagged under the weight of the air.

  A man stumbled out the front door of his house and puked beside the porch. Tom stopped. Should he ask if he was okay? The man straightened and looked at him.

  “Get off my property!” he bellowed, staggering toward him.

  Tom ran. The guy could see him! It made Tom’s belly hurt to see the guy coming at him. He ran, back to the Core, back to the skyscrapers and the people dressed in black, whose faces and clothes weren’t crushed by the air, whose gaze was above his head. Tom ran until he was safe and invisible.

  By the time the sun went behind the skyscrapers, Tom had five blisters on his feet. The backs of his knees felt bruised, and he clumped along as if he had sticks for legs. Everyone was going home, or leaving the Core at least—the beautiful downtown workers who looked as if they belonged in aquariums with special lighting. They hadn’t seen him all day, and no wonder. Maybe it wasn’t that he was invisible. Maybe they were too busy feasting their eyes on their beautiful each others.

  Tom didn’t want to go back to the river. Samuel Wolflegs, medicine man, might be there. At dusk he found a bridge to hide under. Like a bug under a rock, he thought. He was so cold that he didn’t think he could sleep, but he was dozing when someone woke him up shouting.

  “Ghosts! Ghosts!” The voice echoed under the bridge. In the dim light Tom could see an old man.

  Someone yelled, “Shut up!” and Tom heard a bottle smash.

  “Can’t you see them?” the old man wailed. “Ghosts everywhere.”

  Someone chucked another bottle at the old guy, and his voice dropped to a whimper.

  “Leave him alone,” Tom, nice guy, called out.

  Another bottle landed, this one so close to the old guy that glass sprayed over him. Tom leaped up and went to stand beside him. He looked around at the people littering the underbelly of the bridge. He heard low laughter. “Lucky I’m outta bottles,” someone called, “but I’m working on another here.”

  “C’mon,” Tom said to the old man. He grabbed the old guy’s elbow and led him out from under the bridge until they stood directly under a streetlight.

  “Are you a ghost?” the old man asked Tom.

  “No,” Tom said. At least he didn’t think so. Ghosts didn’t feel this thirsty. “Do you have somewhere else you can go?”

  “Nowhere to go, just like them,” the old man said. He had a small head, shrunken, as if it had been left out to dry too long. He wore a red cap that said, IF YOU THINK I’M CUTE YOU SHOULD SEE MY MOMMY. He looked around a lot, as if he felt himself being touched.

  “I’ll take you home,” Tom said.

  The man looked at him in terror. “You are a ghost. You’ve come for me, to take me. But not yet, not yet . . .”

  The man scurried away, looking back twice to see if Tom was chasing him. The streets echoed. Tom was alone, but he didn’t feel alone anymore. He could feel his body hair itching his legs and arms and neck.

  He went back to the bridge, but a bottle smashed at his feet. Tom turned around and clumped back to the river.

  He wondered if Samuel Wolflegs would still be there. The guy creeped him out, but at least he could sl
eep safely there.

  Wolflegs had been right about one thing: the streets hadn’t taken him anywhere he wanted to go. But that was today. Tomorrow . . . Clump, clump. His feet burned. Strange that all these flat streets and level roads could bend to a round earth. There had to be places where it ended, where a road traveler had to fall off the edge, then begin again until the curve became too much.

  At the bridge he stopped and looked down at the river for a long time. Wolflegs had said he wanted to give his son Daniel the river. You couldn’t own a river even if you were rich, but at that moment Tom wished he could. Just looking at the river made him feel better, made his thirst less angry, and his blisters less sting-y. He hadn’t noticed that about rivers before, how they flowed through you and washed your heart and head from the inside. It was like giving his brain a drink. Or maybe he had noticed before, and he’d just forgotten.

  Tom walked over the bridge without seeing Wolflegs. He walked to the far side of the park, out of the carefully landscaped grounds into the brush. He’d come to another branch of the river. He was on an island, created by two arms of the river. Tom explored his island. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he was earnestly seeking it.

  He found a blanket hanging in a tree.

  He went closer. There were spiderwebs attaching it to the branch it hung on. It must have been there for a while. He took it down. It was thick and soft, and not so used. Tom shook it out and lay it in the underbrush by the river. He took out his notebook and pen and wrote, Tom lives on Prince’s Island. Just in case he forgot. He could write a story if he wanted, about how he was a prince, about how he would find a fair maid to rescue. Tom wrote it down.

  Weird.

  He was starting to creep himself out now.

  “Loser,” he said to himself.

  The sound of it frightened him. There was so little of him to know that that one word took up a lot of room in himself. He took out his notebook and read his previous entry: Finder. Not a loser. A Finder. Wolflegs had said.

  He wrapped himself in his blanket and tried to sleep.

  Chapter 3

  If he isn’t going to be afraid of me soon, I will run away.