Someday

Comment from M:

None of you understand.

Comment from PurpleCrayon12:

Why do you say that? (I don’t ask this to dispute what you’re saying. I want to know why you feel we don’t understand.)

Comment from M:

I don’t belong in this body. I have nothing to do with this body. I am trapped in this body. I exist separate from this body. But I can’t die, because I am afraid I will take this body with me.

Comment from PurpleCrayon12:

There are times I wish I could separate from my body.

Comment from M:

The fact that you can say that shows how little you understand.

Comment from PurpleCrayon12:

You don’t know anything about me.

Comment from M:

This is pointless.

Comment from Someone:

I understand.

X

It is easy to find the boy, because he has not moved. His life does not change.

It is easy to follow him, because he has never seen this body before. He has no idea I am here. He has no idea I have returned.

I made a mistake. When I contacted Nathan, when I told him what he wanted to hear—that he had been possessed by the devil for a day, that his actions had not been his own—I felt I had power over him. I knew I could not take his body—for whatever reason, once a body has been occupied, it develops a resistance to being occupied again. But I thought his mind would be a minor challenge at most. A teenage boy discovered by the side of the road, having no idea how he’d gotten there or what he’d done—his uncertainty was my great weapon, and his desire for certainty was my great leverage. Then, when the other body traveler contacted the boy, I thought, At last, here is a line. It is worthless to have a hook if you don’t also have a line. So I manipulated the boy, set up the confrontation. The body traveler walked into this boy’s house, was right in front of me. I recognized her for what she was, and she recognized me for what I was. She was afraid, as I knew she should be. Man should tremble when faced with the manipulations of that which is greater than Man. I had the lure set, the hook within reach. But then she struggled, and the boy surprised me by interfering, giving the girl a chance to flee. I was angry. At the boy, certainly—but also at myself.

I wonder if Nathan knows that the reverend is dead.

Probably not. I doubt anyone noticed. And if nobody notices a death, it is very hard to find out about it.

This body is a different form of anonymity. When I am in a new body, I have the power of unknowability. To those I am watching, I am a complete stranger. I am scenery. And the whole time, I am taking in their moves, their fears, their faults. It is nearly impossible to run from me.

I could be the man next to you in the grocery store.

I could be the man handing you your change.

I could be the man in the window across the street.

I could be the man who gets on the bus two people after you.

I could be the man hitting on you.

The man bumping your shoulder.

The man in your blind spot.

The man right in front of you.

If that doesn’t confer power, I don’t know what does.

Nathan doesn’t see me in my car across the street as he heads to school. He does not understand that, after school, I am the man walking behind him, into a café. He doesn’t think it’s strange that I sit next to him. Because I have a book and am turning the pages at regular intervals, he doesn’t understand that he is my focus.

A girl comes in to meet him. They exchange pleasantries. He says she looks tired. She mentions a bad conversation she had with her boyfriend. I am about to start reading the pages in front of me, so fruitless is this exchange. But then he asks if there’s been any word from someone named A. I am paying attention now, even though the answer is no. They talk about tracking A down. They do not call A he or she. They do not understand that I am taking in every word.

I understand many things at once:

This girl met Nathan on the night he was possessed.

A was the person who possessed him.

A is now gone.

But she still cares about A. Deeply.

I picture A as the frightened, ignorant girl I met in Nathan’s house. It is stupid to leave a trail, and that is exactly what A has done. I don’t know whether it would be better to educate her or kill her. Her existence, like the existence of any other body traveler, threatens my own existence. To know the truth about one of us is to know at least a partial truth about all of us. If people begin to look, they will find us. They will fight. Thus, we must remain unknowable.

A clearly does not know this. And because of this, A has been a fool. She may have run away from me, and from these people. But if she can make a mistake once, she can make it again and again.

Nathan and the girl, whose name he does not say, keep talking about other things. Boring things. I leave, because it’s better to leave than to become familiar. I do not want them to remember me. My work here is not yet done, just as it is not yet defined.

Teach or kill?

Fix or destroy?

I am bothered by the whole A thing. I am hoping this means she did not trust other people with her name. I am hoping it was just a disguise for when she felt it convenient to “confide.”

I gave myself a name, chosen because the first letter does not do what you think it will do. I knew early on that I was male. Even when I was punished with a female body, I knew to act and think like a man. I would not get far otherwise.

This is what I would teach another body traveler: Look around you. See the person who is considered the strongest, then become that person. No matter what body you’re inside, be that person. And when you learn how to stay, when you get more choice—be that person even more. Society is biased and ugly. Use that bias and ugliness to your advantage. Most everyone else does, if they have any power at all.

Even the sad sack of skin and bones that I’m in now has more power than most. I can use that. Having money gives you an advantage, especially if you use it. And being white. And being a man.

Nobody is expecting this man to steal, because he doesn’t need to steal. So I take whatever I want.

I go to a restaurant, have an expensive dinner, then walk out before the check comes. I go to a drugstore and pocket some Advil. Then, just for fun, I find an item that will set off the alarm—an electric razor, on the pricier side for CVS—and I put it in a teenager’s backpack as he searches through deodorants. His fault for leaving his backpack around like that.

I know this is all child’s play, but isn’t child’s play how most of us fill the days? Isn’t it how our leaders have chosen to lead? I fit right in.

I am already getting tired of this body. I appreciate the lack of resistance it offers, but I miss being desirable. I had a long enough time in Poole’s body; I would like to go back to being the object of some carnal attention.

Before I leave this man’s body, I must drain his bank account. This is remarkably easy to do. All I have to do is visit his bank, speak in an even, calm manner about needing funds for a new business venture, then transfer the majority of the money to the accounts I set up for myself years ago. His children will be left with practically nothing, but if they deserved more than nothing, I imagine they would have called or written at some point. If they’re relying on getting their daddy’s money when he’s gone—well, it’s mine now.

I will have to wait a few days for the transfer to go through. It will be worth my while to do so.

In the meantime, there’s more damage to be done.

There’s always more damage to be done.

A

Day 6088

I check her Facebook all the time, waiting for something to happen. Some other message. I check every hour. Every ten minutes. Five minutes. I worry that there’s something I’m not seeing because we’re not friends.

When I wake up, I check the phone first. I see she was out with her boyfriend. I take a shower and think about her picture, about whether she looked happy or was just pretending to look happy. I feel ashamed that I want her to be pretending, then tell myself I don’t really want that. I check for another update after I get dressed, mindlessly pulling things from the drawers. Not thinking about the day at all. Just thinking about her.

Then it hits me: I have been awake for almost an hour and I haven’t even thought about who I am today, haven’t even learned this person’s name. With a few touches on the phone, I am looking at Moses Cheng’s Facebook profile. He only has forty friends. His sister tags him in family photos, but he doesn’t post anything himself. I’m not sure if this means he doesn’t have many friends or if it just means he doesn’t like Facebook. Then I search around a little in his mind and realize the answer’s both.

Moses’s sister is waiting for him in the kitchen. “Here,” she says, throwing him a granola bar. “No time to waste. We’ve got to go.”

“I need my bag,” I tell her. She groans and tells me to go get it.

I’m hoping that Moses doesn’t need anything in his backpack today that he didn’t have there yesterday. I hope he put his homework in, because I don’t have time to look for it. His sister is already calling up for him to hurry. I don’t think she’s being impatient—I think I’m late. Because I got lost thinking of Rhiannon.

In the car, Moses’s sister reminds him she can’t drive him home—she has band practice.

“Are you going to be okay?” she asks him.

I’m sure I’ll be able to find my way. I tell her I’ll be fine. And then I resist checking Rhiannon’s page on Moses’s phone, because his sister is keeping an eye out. Because of the time difference, Rhiannon’s been up for hours now. I don’t understand why she hasn’t posted anything.

I tell myself to stop.

I don’t listen to myself.

Moses is on the shorter side and the slighter side—usually this is helpful when it comes time to be invisible. But for whatever reason, people keep seeing him and shoving him. It’s like a reverse game of pinball, where the pinball stays on a straight course and it’s the bumpers that move toward him.

It’s a little better out of the hallways. But not much. In math class, the guy behind me keeps poking my back with his pencil. The first time he does it, I startle—which he thinks is hysterical. It doesn’t take me long to find that the guy’s name is Carl and this is a regular occurrence. I don’t find any memory of Moses fighting back. So I just sit there and take it. I look around for some sympathetic looks, but no one seems to care. Moses is not the only one who’s used to it.

At the end of class, the teacher asks for homework to be passed up to the front of the room, and I can’t find Moses’s in his backpack. Meanwhile, Carl is shoving his paper in my face, telling me to pass it up. I want to rip it into shreds. I want to shower the shreds over his head. And at the same time, I want to know why I’m letting him get to me. It’s like my navigation through the day has been stripped of any possibility of autopilot. I need autopilot.

The bell rings and Carl takes a bottle of Gatorade out of his bag, opens the cap, and pours the contents into my backpack. I don’t even see it happening at first, I’m so mad at myself about the homework. Then I see him dropping the empty bottle into my bag, and I remember that Moses’s phone is in there. Even though I know I should not engage, I take the bottle out of my backpack and hold it by its neck and swing it at Carl’s laughing face. It’s a plastic bottle, and the damage I do is minimal, but his surprise is immense. Now people are paying attention, and are yelling that it’s a fight. But I don’t want to fight, I just want to save the phone, so I go for my backpack, which gives Carl the opening he needs to throw me to the ground. I can feel myself being lifted, just for a second, and then I’m falling and I’m hitting and he’s yelling that he’s going to hurt me. The teacher’s coming over now, and Carl is claiming self-defense. School security comes and is only slightly less belligerent than Carl. I am marched to the vice principal’s office, and the whole time I’m trying to dry off the phone—I’m actually asking if there’s any way to get a bag of rice from the cafeteria, because I’ve heard that rice can help, but the security guard is completely ignoring anything I say. I look behind me, assuming I’ll see Carl marched in the same formation. But apparently I’m the only one being corralled. It’s the time between class periods now, so the halls are full. People look confused to see me being pulled along by security. I can see a few asking their friends who I am.

The phone won’t turn on. My backpack is leaking a trail on the linoleum floor of the hallway. The security guard is yelling at me to put the phone away, asking me what the hell I’m doing, as if having a dead phone out is an admission of guilt in all things.

I am shown into the vice principal’s office. He’s on the phone, and when he hangs up, I realize the call was about me, because straight off he says, “So . . . you hit a fellow student with a bottle.”

“It was plastic,” I tell him.

This is the wrong thing to say.

“I don’t care if it was made of feathers,” the vice principal fumes. “This school has zero tolerance for violence. Zero.”

“Please,” I say. “Let me give you some context.”

I know there’s a twisted code of honor about never tattling on another student, never speaking up against someone who’s done you wrong. I know I will only make it worse by breaking this code. But the code of honor was written by bullies for the protection of bullies, and I don’t want to follow it.

I tell the vice principal what happened. I tell him about all the abuses Moses has put up with from Carl and his friends—every single one I can find in Moses’s memory, leading up to today. When I tell the vice principal how the bottle came to be in my hand, I see him look at my bag and the pool of Gatorade gathering underneath it.

“I apologize for snapping,” I tell him. “I know that was wrong. But I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to protect myself.”

“Carl Richards says he was protecting himself,” the vice principal points out.

“Yeah,” I say, gesturing to my body. “Because I’m so threatening.”

The vice principal snort-laughs at that, then collects himself, picks up his phone again, and says, “Please find out what classroom Carl Richards is in now and have him sent to see me in five minutes. Thank you.” When he hangs up, he looks at me for a hard few seconds before saying, “Alright. I want you to go see Ms. Tate in the guidance office. Tell her everything you told me, and anything else you might come to remember. Then wait there until the end of school. I’ll talk to Mr. Richards and hear his ‘context,’ and then Ms. Tate and I will discuss our next steps. This is a very serious matter, and I am taking it very seriously.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I pick up my dripping bag and start to head out.

“You also have permission to go to the men’s room to dry that off. The guidance suite has carpeting.”

“Understood, sir.”

I know I have to get out quick, because I don’t want to run into Carl again. Which is cowardly of me, because Moses will have to face him eventually—and since I’m the one who messed up, I should shoulder the initial, inevitable blowback. But I dodge, because I can.

The bathroom is empty. I use about forty paper towels to dry everything off. Some of the books have pages stained orange, and anything that was sitting at the bottom of the backpack—a small notebook, a pack of gum, another granola bar—is now the consistency of pulp.

I try turning on the phone again. Nothing.

I want to go to the library, to use the computer to check Facebook.

Then I remember, no—I have to get to the “guidance suite.”

The minute I walk into Ms. Tate’s office, she says, “Moses, this isn’t like you. This isn’t like you at all. ” I am not surprised that she would say this, but I am surprised that she knows him enough to make the distinction. They’ve clearly talked before, but never about the real problems. Now I have to tell her what I’ve already told the vice principal—and as I do, she looks more and more concerned. I don’t have time to verify it, but I imagine that Moses has only gone to the guidance counselor before to talk about grades and colleges.

“I see, I see,” she says when I’m done. Then she closes her eyes for the slightest of moments, breathes in, and resumes. “Look. You are a smart boy, Moses. And you did a stupid thing. But part of being smart is doing stupid things and learning from them. We do have a zero-tolerance policy at this school about violence. And we also have a zero-tolerance policy about bullying. When those two policies collide—well, it calls for a little tolerance on our part. But whatever happens—and it’s truly out of my hands—you must never attack anyone else here ever again. Period. Is that clear?”

I nod.

“Good. Now give me your phone. I’m going to see if Mary in the cafeteria can spare some rice. I hear that’s the best shot you have. Sucks up the moisture. You’d have to ask Mr. Prue in chemistry for the specifics.”

She leaves, and I sit there alone for a few minutes. Her computer is on, and I wonder if there’s time to check Facebook and then erase the history. It feels like too much of a risk. A ridiculous risk. In fact, I can’t believe I’m thinking about myself at a time like this. Whatever the vice principal decides, I have made Moses’s life worse than it was before I came into it. If I’d been focusing on him and not on myself, I would have had the homework, and my backpack probably would have been zipped. I would have thought for a second about its placement and I would have been sure to keep it out of Carl’s reach.

Ms. Tate returns with a bag full of rice, and assures me that my phone is somewhere in the middle of it. She says to let it sit like that overnight. There’s only a half hour left in school now, and she tells me to read in the corner until the bell rings. I pull out one of my books, and she sees the wet warp and orange taint of the pages.

“Oh dear,” she says. “Can you still read it?”

“It’s mostly on the edges,” I tell her. The pages are hard to turn, and I’m not really registering any of the words, but I make sure to act like I’m reading so I don’t have to talk to her anymore. Eventually she seems to forget I’m there, even when she calls the vice principal to ask what’s to be done now. I don’t hear his answer.

I wonder if Moses’s parents will be called. From his memories, they seem like reasonable people. But this is not a reasonable thing their son has done, so there’s no precedent.

When the bell rings, Ms. Tate tells me, “Be here before homeroom tomorrow—let’s say seven-fifteen. We’ll discuss next steps then. I would advise you to not take the trouble you’re in lightly, and to think long and hard about what you’ve done. This is not to excuse Carl from anything that he did—but there have to be methods of dealing with him that do not involve fighting in school.”

I don’t challenge this point. But the question lingers, and I think both Ms. Tate and I feel it: What would those methods be? How do you stop someone like Carl, short of taking him down?

My guess is that the fight was not spectacular enough to merit school-wide gossip, because I make it to my locker unimpeded. I feel that if word had spread, Moses’s sister would have tried to get in touch with him. Although for all I know, she’s texted repeatedly.

It’s not that far of a walk home—fifteen minutes tops. I can’t map it or anything, so I rely on Moses’s memory. As people board buses and get rides, I try to make myself unremarkable. A lot of people are walking in the direction of Taco Bell and McDonald’s, so I veer down a side alley. I’m eager to get back to Moses’s computer, behind the closed door of Moses’s room. I am trying not to think about what it will be like for him when he wakes up tomorrow morning and realizes he has to get to school early to see Ms. Tate for the verdict on whether he’ll be suspended or expelled.

I hear a car coming and step to the side so it can pass. But instead of passing, it pulls up beside me. I turn and see someone who looks a lot like Carl—his brother?—in the driver’s seat, and then Carl in the passenger seat and some other guys in the back. The car turns into me, blocking my way, and stops. I turn around to run, but they’re already jumping out of the car.

I am so, so stupid.

“Hey, Cheng!” Carl’s brother calls out, slamming his door. “Think you’re tough, crying all over Petty’s office? Think it’s okay to attack someone in class, do you?”

He’s at least nine inches taller than me and might weigh twice as much. There’s no way this is fair.

“Fucking Cheng,” Carl snarls.

I don’t like the way they’re using my last name.

“Ready to fight now?” Carl’s brother taunts. “Gonna break out your karate moves?”

I want to leave my body, which isn’t even my body. I want to be able to leave while what’s about to happen is happening. Flight and fight aren’t really options. That leaves fright.

Protect your head.

I have no idea where I learned this. But when the first blow comes—Carl’s brother steps aside and makes Carl do it—I don’t try to strike back. I don’t open myself up by lashing out. No, I roll up and protect my head. I try to use the wall next to me to cover as much as possible. They start to kick me then, in the side. It hurts. A lot. But I am protecting my head. Moses’s head.

I hear shouting. The kicking stops. There’s more shouting. I can feel them moving away from me. Something soft comes and presses against me. The car doors open and slam. The engine starts. I open my eyes. It’s a dog—there’s a dog next to me. “Are you okay?” a woman is asking. She has her phone in her hand. I think it’s to call the police, but instead she says, “I got the whole thing. I got pictures of all those guys.” I’m trying to sit up, but it really hurts. I wipe my forehead and there’s blood.

“Okay, okay,” the woman says. “Don’t move. I’m calling an ambulance.”

I start crying. Because I’m hurting, yes. But also because I’ve done this to him. I’ve done this.

More people are gathering now, asking what happened. One of them says he’s a doctor and heard the shouting from his office. He checks me out and gets me to stand. We go to his office and he stops the bleeding, explaining that it’s just a cut, that I’m going to be okay. It looks worse than it is.

Then he checks my side and tells me I may have broken a few ribs. Tells me to lie down. Asks me for my parents’ number.

I try. But I don’t know it.

I explain about my phone, and I probably seem incoherent at first, answering What’s your parents’ phone number? with something about rice. But eventually the bag of rice is retrieved from my backpack. They take the phone out—too soon. It doesn’t work.

I tell them to call the school. To ask for Ms. Tate.

When they think I can’t hear, the doctor and his assistant say they can’t believe that kids today don’t know any phone numbers. I want to go to sleep. But I force myself to stay awake.

The ambulance arrives and I’m taken to the hospital for X-rays and for treatment. About ten minutes later, Ms. Tate comes in and says my parents are on their way. I look behind her and see my sister in the hall, crying. I wonder if she’s going to blame herself, for letting me walk home alone even though I told her it was going to be okay.

When my parents arrive, my sister stays in the hall. My mother is focused on how I’m feeling and what the doctors have said. My father is seething, and tells me that the boys who attacked me are being arrested as we speak. Apparently the video caught all their faces.