Jumper by Steven Gould
I lowered my head and repeated stubbornly, “I’ve never lied to you. Everything I’ve told you has been true.”
She didn’t believe me. “There’s lying and there’s lying. Do you know what lying by omission is? Do you know what lying by implication is? Why do the police want you? What did you do? Why did you keep it from me?”
“Because I wanted you to love me!”
She took a step back, the scared look on her face again.
“Because I wanted you to love me.... Oh, fuck it!” I stopped and stared up into the clouds, tears mixing with mist.
She looked away, unwilling to watch me. I stifled the tears, clenched my eyes shut, squeezed them out.
“What do you want?” I asked. “What can I do to make it all right?”
“You lied to me. You betrayed me. I told you what that means.”
I shook my head, disbelieving. “You said that if you ever found that I lied to you, we were through. Is that what you want? Shall I just go away and never bother you again?”
She looked at me, her eyes narrowed, her mouth a thin, uncompromising line. “Yes.”
I looked at her disgust, her anger, her hate, and I couldn’t stand it.
“Good-bye, then.”
Out of spite, then, while she watched, I jumped away, to escape, without thought, without direction. Then, on the floor of the Stanville Public Library, I curled up in a ball and cried and cried and cried.
I spent the night in my recliner, in the Stillwater apartment, my long leather coat as a blanket. There was no heat or light because I’d yet to have the utilities turned on. I had nightmares about Dad, when he’d hit me for crying. Millie was there, standing at the side and nodding at everything Dad said. I awoke in the gray of dawn, shivering, my back aching. I chose not to go back to sleep.
After putting on my shoes, I jumped to the landing outside my apartment door in Brooklyn. There was a fresh hasp and padlock locking the door and a sign that said, SEALED BY NYPD. FOR INFORMATION, CONTACT D. WASHBURN, 72ND PRECINCT.
I jumped to the bedroom. The bed was stripped, all the linens tossed in the corner. I cautiously checked the rest of the apartment.
At some point they’d realized that there was too much dead space between the kitchen and living room. They’d torn through the covered-up door of the money closet, but I knew there wasn’t a thing to find in there.
The kitchen was a shambles, dishes stacked precariously on the counters. Several of them had been taken aside and dusted with fingerprint powder. The garbage had been dumped in the sink and examined closely.
I ignored the mess and began jumping items to the Stillwater apartment, sorting the pots and dishes into the cabinets. I was surprised to find they hadn’t broken anything, but it didn’t seem to matter.
Nothing seemed to matter.
Still, I handled each delicately glazed piece with reverential care, wiping the dust from it with a dish towel before consigning it to its place in the cabinet. I’d bought the dishes at the end of the summer with Millie’s help. Mom had liked them very much.
By midmorning I’d transferred all the kitchen and bathroom stuff, as well as the bed and its frame. The only things left in the apartment that I had any interest in were the drapes and miniblinds, but I was sure the police were still waiting for me outside and I didn’t want them to know I was in the apartment.
Back in Stillwater, I went through the motions of having the water, electricity, cable, and gas turned on. I also decided against starting a new bank account. If I couldn’t pay for something with a postal money order or cash, I wouldn’t buy it.
None of the utilities seemed to blink at receiving cash for deposits. Maybe things are different in college towns. They all promised to activate services by the end of the next day. While I was out, I passed the phone company, but I also decided against a phone. I was not feeling very sociable.
One of my windows looked out on the street running between the campus and the apartment complex. I stared out of it for most of the afternoon, watching people walk by, their steps quick in the rain. I jumped to a deli in Manhattan for coffee and a sandwich about midafternoon, but I ate them at the window in Stillwater.
At 4:15, Millie crossed from campus at the light and walked up the street. She was moving more slowly than those around her, staring down at the sidewalk, her face remote. She was carrying an umbrella that she’d bought from a street vendor in New York City back when I’d first met her.
“Four dollars, miss. Only four dollars.” She’d shaken her head. “Three dollars, three dollars.” In the end, they’d settled on two and a half. I’d commented that it would probably dissolve in the rain, but there it was, proving me a liar.
I wanted to jump to the sidewalk and stand in front of her, but the memory of her face from the night before was too much.
So, why am I in Stillwater, then?
I watched her walk slowly out of sight.
I tried to write Millie a letter, to explain why the police wanted to talk to me. To explain that I’d purchased a fake ID with money that I robbed from a bank using an ability that people didn’t have. Every time I saw the words on screen, I found myself deleting the document. Hell, I found myself doubting the story. How could I expect Millie to believe it?
I wanted to get away, to hunker down, to wait out the storm. I visited Serendipity Travel and went through their brochures. I ignored all the places that showed people smiling and having a good time. Smiling was not compatible with the image in my head. Finally I found the place, a retreat, located in West Texas. The brochure talked about isolation and wilderness and meditation. It was perfect.
It took me most of the day to get into El Paso. From there I boarded a bus just before it left, and sat near the front, away from the smoking section. I carried the camera in one of the backpacks bought for the Chemical Bank robbery, and stuffed in the pockets of my coat were antihistamines, ibuprofen, and tissues.
I had a cold.
We went east on I-10, winding along the Rio Grande and into a thunder-and-dust storm. I dozed, my sleep troubled by weird, half-remembered dreams that didn’t quite stop when I awoke. At the rest stop, before we turned south at Van Horn, on U.S. 90, I stumbled off the bus to buy something to drink, my mouth dry and my skin hot. It hurt to swallow.
The storm’s intensity worsened and the bus took four hours to do the next leg of the journey. My fever seemed worse, but I didn’t want to waste the time I’d spent so far. If I jumped away now, I’d have to start over at the rest stop, outside Van Horn. I blew my nose and dozed.
At Marfa the bus turned south on U.S. 67, a road which stretched across the desert before climbing through the Cuesta Del Burro and Chinati mountains before making the long drop down to the Rio Grande at Presidio, elevation thirty-three feet. The bus made a meal stop here, at the Presidio Tastee-Freez, but I jumped to Greenwich Village for a falafel pita. I only ate part of it—no appetite. I jumped back for the last leg of the journey, down Farm to Market Road 170.
It was late afternoon and the sky was cloudy, but it was hot in Redford. I thanked the bus driver, recorded a jump site, and jumped directly to the Stillwater apartment with only a slight ear pain.
My lover had rejected me, the police were after me, I had a fever of 102°F, my right ear wouldn’t stop aching, and I was having trouble breathing. So I felt guilty for feeling sorry for myself.
It’s easy enough to say, Hey, Davy, you’re entitled. You’ve got every right to feel sorry for yourself. Understanding that didn’t make me feel any less guilty. If anything, it made it worse, because the guilt made me angry, made me defensive. So, I was feeling sorry for myself, guilty, and angry.
‘Cause deep down inside, I knew I deserved it all.
At 8 P.M. I jumped to a twenty-four-hour clinic in midtown Manhattan. I lied on the sign-in forms about my name and address and said I would pay in cash. The doctor, a Hindu named Patel, listened to my symptoms, took my temperature, peered in my ears, then listened to my l
“Oh, my,” he said. I went into a spasm of coughing. He held the stethoscope away from my chest for its duration, then listened again when I was still. “Oh, my.”
He took a bottle out of a refrigerator and loaded an unpleasantly large syringe. “You have no known allergies, right?”
“Right.”
“Drop your pants.”
“What is it?”
“Antibiotics. Ampicillin. You’re on the edge of pneumonia. I am giving you this shot and prescriptions for oral antibiotics, cough medicine, antihistamines, and eardrops. If your lungs were any more congested or your fever any higher, I would put you into a hospital bed. As it is, you are to go straight to a drugstore and fill this, then home to bed.”
He stuck the needle into the upper part of my right buttock. It didn’t hurt at first, but when he depressed the plunger, the muscle cramped severely. “Owww!”
“Don’t walk,” he added. “Take a cab. Don’t exert yourself. Drink plenty of liquids. Drink liquids until you think you will burst.”
I nodded, rubbing the muscles below the injection.
He looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Are you sure you understand?”
I laughed weakly. “Do I look as bad as all that?”
“Very bad. Yes.”
“Okay. Drugstore, home, bed, lotsa liquids, lotsa rest. Take a taxi. What else?”
He looked less worried. “Come back in two days. Have a seat while I write out the prescriptions.”
“I’d rather stand,” I said, still rubbing my butt.
He pointed at the couch. “Lie down, then. Doctor’s orders. It is very important you rest.”
When he’d finished writing out the prescriptions, he asked me how I felt. “My butt hurts.”
“You are not having itching, or apprehension? Are you feeling puffy around the eyelids, lips, tongue, hands or feet?”
“No. Why?”
“Just to make sure you are not having an allergic reaction to the injection. Well, off with you, and don’t forget to come back in two days.”
I paid in cash, jumped to a twenty-four-hour drugstore that I knew in Brooklyn, and had the prescription filled. The pharmacist took forever. There was no place to sit. I leaned against the end of a display and coughed. When he finally finished, I paid, staggered out the door, and jumped, no thoughts in my head but bed.
The room I appeared in was empty and dark, bare of all furniture except the miniblinds on the window. It was the Brooklyn apartment, still sealed by the NYPD.
Stupid! I concentrated, remembered the Stillwater apartment, its view of the campus where I’d watched Millie walk in the rain. I jumped again, and got it right.
I took all of the appropriate drugs, in the right quantities, making myself check everything twice. The way I felt, I was likely to OD by mistake. The antibiotics were the worst, horse pills, but at least they made me drink several glasses of water before the lump in my throat was gone. If I understood the directions, I wouldn’t have to take the next dose until morning.
It took all my willpower to undress before falling into bed.
The next thirty-six hours were blurred, distorted by fever, antihistamines, and restless sleep. When I wasn’t asleep, my thoughts turned inevitably to Millie. If I managed to avoid thinking of her, I thought about the police. Every sound I heard outside my apartment made me think they were about to break in, and I would stumble to the windows and look desperately around, paranoid. Once the mailman walked by and for an instant I took the uniform to be police blue.
The fever broke sometime Thursday evening and I dropped into a deeper, more restful sleep, though I had dreams.
Friday morning, I showered, dressed, and jumped to the clinic in Manhattan. There was an awkward moment as I struggled to remember what name I’d given on my previous visit, but I managed, in the end, to dredge it up.
“Well,” Dr. Patel said, listening to my chest, “that is much more like it. How do you feel?”
“Weak, but my ear doesn’t hurt now.”
“And is there any pain in the chest?”
“No.”
“Well, I am thinking that we caught it in time. Be sure and complete the full course of antibiotics. You may take or leave the antihistamines and cough medicine as your symptoms require, but, to be on the safe side, keep up the eardrops for two more days. If the pain does not return, you may discontinue application.”
I thanked him and paid for the visit.
Back in Stillwater I wandered aimlessly about the apartment, restless. I tried to pick up several different books but found it difficult to concentrate. Finally, I spent some time hooking up the entertainment center, running all the cables from VCR to TV to stereo to 8-mm videotape player (for the camera’s tapes) to the wall cable outlet.
I watched the last half of an old movie classic on one of the movie channels, then flipped around, looking for something interesting. There were several soap operas, a few game shows, and movies that I’d already seen or thought were stupid. Then I hit CNN and paused.
“The hostage crisis at Algiers Airport is over, leaving one hostage dead and several others wounded. The three hijackers and fourteen of the hostages were driven from the airport in a truck and passed through Algerian Army checkpoints. Five hours later, a bus with the hostages aboard pulled up outside the Swiss consulate. The fourteen hostages taken from the aircraft were the only Americans aboard after the death of Mary Niles.” What...?
“There has been no response to American and British demands that Algeria arrest and try the hijackers. We go now to Athens Airport, where the hijacking of Pan Am flight 932 began.”
The screen switched from the female news anchor to a blond male reporter standing in an airport concourse. He said, “Luggage crew on the ground saw three men carrying duffel bags board the Pan Am 727 from a food service truck, shortly before the plane taxied away from the gate. According to one of the British passengers, these men hid themselves in the aft lavatories, bursting out, after the plane was airborne, with grenades and Uzi submachine guns. They made all passengers put their hands behind their heads and their heads between their knees. Those in first class heard one of the hijackers screaming into the cockpit intercom in broken English that he would start killing the flight attendants if the cockpit door was not opened.
“Captain Lawrence Johnson, pilot of flight 932, reported the hijacking to Athens radar control and changed his transponder code to read 7500, the international signal for hijacking. Then he had his copilot open the door.”
The scene on the TV changed to an exterior control tower while a voice-over, heavy with radio static, said, “This is Pan Am 932. We have a hijacking and are diverting to Beirut.” A message that said recording appeared at the bottom of the screen.
The scene changed back to the CNN news anchor. “Four hours later, Pan Am 932 attempted to land at Beirut Airport, but Syrian Army forces in control of western Beirut refused permission to land, blocking the runway with fire trucks and airline buses. After threatening to crash the plane or land in the sea, they were told, ‘Doesn’t matter to us. You will not land here.’
“The hijackers then diverted the plane to Nicosia Airport in Cyprus, which also refused permission to land, but, in consideration of fuel problems, allowed the hijackers to land in Larnaca, where the hijackers demanded the plane be fueled. Cypriot authorities refused, but relented when the hijackers threatened to kill passengers one by one, until they received fuel. During fueling, airport antiterrorist personnel, dressed as fueling crew, affixed small radio-controlled charges to the landing-gear tires.”
The camera showed the aircraft taxiing away from the fuel pits, and then, when it was in the middle of the taxiway and almost to the runway, small puffs of vapor came from each of the wheels and the aircraft shuddered to a halt.
The next scene was of a woman in a hospital bed. Her face was swollen and there was a dressing covering one cheek. A voice-over explained that this was Linda Matthews, flight attendant
“When the tires blew the hijackers started screaming, very angry. They began beating the copilot and screaming at Captain Johnson to ‘Take off, take off!’ He tried to get the aircraft moving twice more, but the airframe just shook. Finally he said, ‘I can’t. The landing gear is gone.’ They opened the door, then, and had some of the passengers hang me out the door to look at the landing gear. I told them that all the tires were flat. I told them there was no way the aircraft could take off. That’s when he began hitting me with the barrel of his gun. That’s when they started hitting Captain Johnson, too.”
The screen switched back to the anchor. “The hijackers demanded a new aircraft then, immediately. Authorities refused. Negotiations stretched out for seven hours. During this time, the hijackers demanded the release of several Shiite Muslims being held in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Italy. Finally, in the first apparent breakthrough, the hijackers said they would release all but the American passengers in return for a new plane. Authorities countered with an offer of a new plane if all hostages were released. The hijackers said, ‘Wait for our answer.’ “
The screen switched back to Linda Matthews, flight attendant.
“During the flight from Athens they moved everybody out of first class and put them in empty seats in coach. The flight wasn’t very full, so this wasn’t a problem. The leader, the hijacker who always made the demands, came out of the cockpit. He looked very angry. I’d been moved to a seat at the back of first class where I pretended to be unconscious. I didn’t want them hitting me again. The leader called out to the hijacker standing at the back of coach in Arabic. The man at the back of coach brought a briefcase forward. On his way I could hear him hitting at anybody who wasn’t completely bent forward, face on their lap. They pulled a female passenger from the first aisle seat in coach and handcuffed the briefcase to her wrist. Then I heard the leader say, ‘Take message to Americans.’ The woman, the one they’d pulled from coach, she looked very frightened, hardly able to stand. I heard the leader say to her, ‘You are much luck. You leave plane.’ “