Opposite of Always(3)
The man officer presses my face so hard against the linoleum it’s a wonder my brain doesn’t rupture out of my eye sockets. Legs and feet come rushing into the room. Lots of shouting and screaming, and people keep shaking me and asking me what I injected her with, what drug was it, and the truth is I wouldn’t know exactly how to explain it even if I wanted to. But I don’t want to. Because this is the only thing that I could do. This is the only way.
While the doctors scramble to save her life, the officers drag me across the wet floor, across the lobby, back out into the night.
I know that if I make the tiniest move, if I even breathe too hard, they’ll probably shoot me. Or at least knock me out cold. But it doesn’t matter. Because I got a peek at the clock on my way out of Kate’s room. And if things happen like before, then either Kate lives, or any second now it starts again.
The male officer has a thing for smushing my face, because now my cheek is back against the cruiser. I’m guessing he intends to search me more thoroughly this time.
“If that girl dies, I’m going to—”
But I feel it hit me before he can finish. I close my eyes. The air already peeling, gravity ripping away from me like a pulled parachute. The tremors are nastier this time, too. I can barely stand. My body one long violent vibration.
“Kid, are you okay?” He barks an order to his partner, tells her to go inside for help, and she darts off at full speed, but it doesn’t matter. She won’t make it in time. If I could talk, I’d tell them not to worry. That I’m not dying. I’m merely buffering. That I was trying to save her. Not that they’d understand. Not that I understand. The first time it happened, I thought I was a goner. But now.
I don’t know how to describe it except that it’s like my body’s preparing for launch. You know, if my body was a highly evolved space shuttle and space shuttles traveled through time instead of just into space.
“Kid, listen to me, talk to me! I think he’s having a seizure. Kid! Kid!”
Oh yeah, lesson number two:
Time travel hurts.
The Beginning Beginning
The Experience of Having Zero Experiences
People love to say, “There’s someone for everyone.”
It’s one of those “feel better” things your mom tells you after your relationship has crashed and burned, or your normally noncommunicative dad mumbles as he slaps you between your shoulder blades, then announces “good talk.” But it’s mostly true. If you consider how many people are walking around this planet, there has to be someone you could fit perfectly with, right? The person who makes your heart say super-crazy things like “I’ll love you forever” and “I can’t wait to meet your parents” and “Oh, sure, let’s definitely get each other’s names tattooed on our necks.” The problem is we spend most of our puny lives chasing someone else’s someone, and, if we’re lucky, we end up with only a third of the time we could’ve spent with the person truly meant for us. That is, if we don’t wind up missing them altogether.
Take me, for instance.
I’m an expert on just missing out—on the girl of my dreams, on class valedictorian, on making it onto any sort of sports team. (I’ve tried them all. In one desperate moment I auditioned for mascot. Turns out “Hairy” Larry Koviak executes a far superior somersault.) And the extracurricular clubs? Yep, tried those, too, only to narrowly miss the cut. Which is funny because I’d always thought that anyone could just join a school club (add that to the Things Jack Has Been Utterly and Unequivocally Wrong About list). Point is, you name it, I’ve found a way to miss my chance, often by the slimmest of margins. By now I’m an authority on Almost, with nearly eighteen years of working experience on my résumé.
Need more proof, just walk with me through our attic. It’s a virtual shrine to Nice Try, or as I like to call it, “Jack’s Stupefying Museum of Almost Was but Never Will Be.” There’s a skateboard in mint condition, from the summer that I almost became a semipro skateboarder. There’s a sewing machine that I used to tell everyone was my mom’s but was actually mine from that time I was really into Project Runway for a few seasons. There’s the Frisbee golf set, the antique marble collection, a crate full of tiny unfinished circuits, a box with every Super Nintendo game ever created, a coffin-size container that was my first (and only) attempt at a time machine (don’t ask!), and a never-used set of noncollectible ninja stars (seriously, don’t ask!).
Almost, almost, almost, almost, almo— You get it.
I joke that my parents were prophets when they named me Jack Ellison King.
Jack of all. King of none.
Except my mom’s always reminding me that I was named for Jackie Robinson, who broke through the pro sports color barrier, and Ralph Ellison, writer and scholar, best known for his seminal work Invisible Man.
I’m an only child. My parents had me rather late in life, after trying hard for years, and, well, just as they’d abandoned all hope—I swam along. Mom wanted to name me Miracle, but Dad (not usually the voice of reason, but willing to make an exception here) intervened—is it your dream to have Miracle get his ass kicked every day, honey?
And so Jackie Ellison it was.
Which I can’t help but think is a prime example of the Best and Worst of Parenting.