It wasn’t as creepy as it sounded. We were both wearing khaki shorts and no shirts and were tan with sun-kissed brown hair. I couldn’t decide if he was four or nine or twelve. I had no idea of the specifics of children. He was too young to drive, but old enough to be able to turn doorknobs.
“Are you a time traveler?” he called warily.
“Yes,” I replied. I was pleased that he had also noticed the similarity. Already I was shaping this into a song. “But only forward.”
“Are you me?”
“Sure,” I said.
He scratched his stomach with the plane. “What is my future?”
I said, “You’re famous, and you have a Mustang.”
We both looked at the Saturn parked behind the building.
With a frown, the boy hurled the plane at me. It careened through the shimmering air before disappearing somewhere into the roof crevices of the rental house, palms hiding it.
“Well, now you’ve done it,” I said. “You’ve probably broken it.”
The boy looked dismissive. “It’s not about the landing. It’s about the flying.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. I felt agreeably goose-bumpy, like I was creeping myself out on purpose. “Maybe you are me.
Are you real?”
On the chair behind me, my phone rang. It was Isabel, calling me back. I pointed at the boy and turned to answer it.
“I found you a wedding,” she said.
“I think I just talked to younger me from the past,” I replied.
I turned back around, but the roof deck opposite was now empty. “He was flying a plane.”
“Great. I hope you told him to not do drugs. Do you want the address or the name or what?”
I tried to see where the little plane had landed. I sort of wanted it. I made a note to break into the rental house if at all possible. “Give me the everything. Oh, tweet that. That’s something I would say.”
“I’m hanging up now.” She did.
I called T.
“Cole!” he said gladly.
“Life is about to happen,” I said, with a last glance toward where I had seen younger me. “I’m just putting on a shirt.”
He and Joan arrived so quickly that I suspected he had been lying around waiting for me to call. Together, we made the odious journey across the courtyard to Leyla’s part of the compound.
Joan and T trailed me, cameras on shoulders.
“Hey,” I said to Leyla.
She was sitting at the island in the kitchen, eating a plate of chopped-up raw vegetables, her dreads hanging around her long face. She blinked at me and then at the cameras. I had not knocked, but she didn’t say anything about it. I tried not to hate her, because it felt like a victory for Baby.
“Today is the day we make magic happen,” I said.
Leyla ate a piece of something green. She chewed. We all got older while she swallowed. “What did you have in mind?”
“Grand things. Where’s your kit?”
She just looked at me. I couldn’t tell if she was high or stupid or simply hating me back. None of those things were mutually exclusive.
“Your drums? These things?” I air-drummed. “Get them.
Put them in the Saturn. Come with me into the future.”
She put another vegetable in her mouth. She chewed.
“Since we started this conversation,” I said, “two hundred babies have been born on this planet. And what have we accomplished?
You have eaten that thing.”
Leyla swallowed. “You didn’t hurry to get over here until now. Time is continuous, Cole. It doesn’t speed up and slow down. Do not let yourself be fooled by whims. Contentment is constancy.” She drew a slow, even line in the air with something I thought was a zucchini.
I said, “Sure. Okay. But we’re on a schedule now. Drums.
Saturn. You and me, baby. Bring your garden there. You can eat it on the way. Do you have a wheelbarrow or something? I’ll chuck it in there for you while you get your kit together.”
She didn’t move. “What am I playing?”
“Music.”
“What kind of music?”
“Mine.”
“Do I know it?”
“There is this thing called jamming and it means you play a piece of music with other people even if you have never heard it before, and if you tell me you have no idea how that’s done, put down that carrot because I’m firing you.”
Leyla ate the carrot. “Music is inherent, man,” she said.
“And you don’t have to be such a hole all the time. I’ll get the drums.”
Jeremy was at band practice with people who were not me when I arrived to fetch him.
It wasn’t that I didn’t understand Jeremy getting a new band while I was missing/dead/etc. I was sure I would have done the same thing in his position. Well, I would have started one, not joined one, because I don’t really like team sports unless I’ve invented both the team and the sport. But I didn’t begrudge him for finding some new people to play music with.
It’s what we do, after all. We can’t get this out of our blood. The music.
But it didn’t make me feel any better about having to share him. Especially since I wanted better for him than this: a fairly boring band playing inside a fairly boring garage attached to a fairly boring house in a fairly boring part of L.A. I could hear their efforts as I pulled the Saturn up to the worn curb. They were clearly just a high-class cover band with an unimaginative guitarist, a drummer who had learned everything he knew from pool halls, and a singer named Chase or Chad.
That bass player was top-notch, though.
I got out and stepped over a hose snaked across the concrete drive. It was attached to a listless sprinkler that showered the small, brown yard.
That sprinkler, I thought, was a lot like Jeremy. That water wasn’t going to improve that yard any more than Jeremy was going to improve this band. What a waste.
The music died as I approached. The only sound was the cha-cha-cha of the sprinkler. The dim interior of the garage reminded me how much I wanted the Mustang. The smell of it reminded me how much I missed Victor. Our garage practices had been works of art.
“I’m here for Jeremy,” I announced. “Jeremy Shutt. In the case that there are two Jeremys here.”
The humans in the garage simply stared at me, so I explained a few self-evident facts. (1) A band practice is moveable, while a wedding is not, and (2) no amount of practice was going to make this band interesting enough to get a label on board, so (3) really I was just saving them all a lot of time.
“Are you a time traveler?” he called warily.
“Yes,” I replied. I was pleased that he had also noticed the similarity. Already I was shaping this into a song. “But only forward.”
“Are you me?”
“Sure,” I said.
He scratched his stomach with the plane. “What is my future?”
I said, “You’re famous, and you have a Mustang.”
We both looked at the Saturn parked behind the building.
With a frown, the boy hurled the plane at me. It careened through the shimmering air before disappearing somewhere into the roof crevices of the rental house, palms hiding it.
“Well, now you’ve done it,” I said. “You’ve probably broken it.”
The boy looked dismissive. “It’s not about the landing. It’s about the flying.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. I felt agreeably goose-bumpy, like I was creeping myself out on purpose. “Maybe you are me.
Are you real?”
On the chair behind me, my phone rang. It was Isabel, calling me back. I pointed at the boy and turned to answer it.
“I found you a wedding,” she said.
“I think I just talked to younger me from the past,” I replied.
I turned back around, but the roof deck opposite was now empty. “He was flying a plane.”
“Great. I hope you told him to not do drugs. Do you want the address or the name or what?”
I tried to see where the little plane had landed. I sort of wanted it. I made a note to break into the rental house if at all possible. “Give me the everything. Oh, tweet that. That’s something I would say.”
“I’m hanging up now.” She did.
I called T.
“Cole!” he said gladly.
“Life is about to happen,” I said, with a last glance toward where I had seen younger me. “I’m just putting on a shirt.”
He and Joan arrived so quickly that I suspected he had been lying around waiting for me to call. Together, we made the odious journey across the courtyard to Leyla’s part of the compound.
Joan and T trailed me, cameras on shoulders.
“Hey,” I said to Leyla.
She was sitting at the island in the kitchen, eating a plate of chopped-up raw vegetables, her dreads hanging around her long face. She blinked at me and then at the cameras. I had not knocked, but she didn’t say anything about it. I tried not to hate her, because it felt like a victory for Baby.
“Today is the day we make magic happen,” I said.
Leyla ate a piece of something green. She chewed. We all got older while she swallowed. “What did you have in mind?”
“Grand things. Where’s your kit?”
She just looked at me. I couldn’t tell if she was high or stupid or simply hating me back. None of those things were mutually exclusive.
“Your drums? These things?” I air-drummed. “Get them.
Put them in the Saturn. Come with me into the future.”
She put another vegetable in her mouth. She chewed.
“Since we started this conversation,” I said, “two hundred babies have been born on this planet. And what have we accomplished?
You have eaten that thing.”
Leyla swallowed. “You didn’t hurry to get over here until now. Time is continuous, Cole. It doesn’t speed up and slow down. Do not let yourself be fooled by whims. Contentment is constancy.” She drew a slow, even line in the air with something I thought was a zucchini.
I said, “Sure. Okay. But we’re on a schedule now. Drums.
Saturn. You and me, baby. Bring your garden there. You can eat it on the way. Do you have a wheelbarrow or something? I’ll chuck it in there for you while you get your kit together.”
She didn’t move. “What am I playing?”
“Music.”
“What kind of music?”
“Mine.”
“Do I know it?”
“There is this thing called jamming and it means you play a piece of music with other people even if you have never heard it before, and if you tell me you have no idea how that’s done, put down that carrot because I’m firing you.”
Leyla ate the carrot. “Music is inherent, man,” she said.
“And you don’t have to be such a hole all the time. I’ll get the drums.”
Jeremy was at band practice with people who were not me when I arrived to fetch him.
It wasn’t that I didn’t understand Jeremy getting a new band while I was missing/dead/etc. I was sure I would have done the same thing in his position. Well, I would have started one, not joined one, because I don’t really like team sports unless I’ve invented both the team and the sport. But I didn’t begrudge him for finding some new people to play music with.
It’s what we do, after all. We can’t get this out of our blood. The music.
But it didn’t make me feel any better about having to share him. Especially since I wanted better for him than this: a fairly boring band playing inside a fairly boring garage attached to a fairly boring house in a fairly boring part of L.A. I could hear their efforts as I pulled the Saturn up to the worn curb. They were clearly just a high-class cover band with an unimaginative guitarist, a drummer who had learned everything he knew from pool halls, and a singer named Chase or Chad.
That bass player was top-notch, though.
I got out and stepped over a hose snaked across the concrete drive. It was attached to a listless sprinkler that showered the small, brown yard.
That sprinkler, I thought, was a lot like Jeremy. That water wasn’t going to improve that yard any more than Jeremy was going to improve this band. What a waste.
The music died as I approached. The only sound was the cha-cha-cha of the sprinkler. The dim interior of the garage reminded me how much I wanted the Mustang. The smell of it reminded me how much I missed Victor. Our garage practices had been works of art.
“I’m here for Jeremy,” I announced. “Jeremy Shutt. In the case that there are two Jeremys here.”
The humans in the garage simply stared at me, so I explained a few self-evident facts. (1) A band practice is moveable, while a wedding is not, and (2) no amount of practice was going to make this band interesting enough to get a label on board, so (3) really I was just saving them all a lot of time.
