Trick's Own Stationary Roadshow

He was Trick to his friends, Mr. Van Niftrik to his students, and Jephthah to his parents. For all of his names, he was cursed to remain, always, the same person, which made him relish how almost everyone else was in a constant state of change, particularly since he “authored” said changes himself.

Lately he craved his afternoons over at Yoli’s place; he got to watch movies and games, with her and the guy who seemed on his way to taking her off of the market. Even before the whole Stream business put a swerve in his path, Saturday couldn’t arrive soon enough for him anyhow. It was the perfect end, he felt, to each week, even though he couldn’t tell anyone back home about it.

Trick ‘dialed’ himself over to Yoli’s ‘wave’, and hit the freeway. His sister’s apartment was ‘just around the corner’ — in more ways than one! — but he knew it was a cosmic undertaking to pay a call on her, just the same, as it entailed a lot more than simply hitting the Sagamore Parkway South, out of Lafayette. He could walk to there from his own place, if he had chosen to visit her from one of the dozens of places he had rented, elsewhen in the Stream… if only he had chosen to remain in Indy, where she lived, it would have meant, for him anyhow, one less complication, and a lot less gas and maintenance for his car. At the age of thirty-one, he no longer drove for entertainment, the way kids did.

He liked to drop in on her cozy little dimension, from the place he called home already, and that entailed driving south. His command of the Stream blew the lid off of the multiverse… letting him explore his life’s options in a quite literal way, but it did not grant him powers over physical laws, per se; for instance, he could not “beam” from one place to another. He still obeyed the other physical laws; he had just learned to obey them in a quantum multiverse he roamed, at will, ever since his adolescent angst had pushed him to wish he was in another reality… at which point, he was!

He had almost told his family about his abilities, so many times, but as an only child, back in the day, he just wanted to keep his weird gift to himself: at least, once, he perceived that it was a most uncommon ability. Asking his friends if it had ever happened to them, this business of stepping from one edition of time to another, meeting people in one iteration who did not exist in others, was an exercise in humiliation he was eager to avoid having, in any spot in the Stream (Trick had inherited his father’s introversion and his mother’s determination). He just wanted to live his lives.

He had to keep his visits brief, just a few hours. It wasn’t taxing on him, but he had learned early on that time flowed at the same rate, in every version of life; at least, it did so for him. He couldn’t spend the night at Yoli’s, even though he wanted to do so, and if his neighbors or parents wanted to know where he had been, what could he say? He had learned to await the flow of current-timeline memories, when he arrived; it took a variable interval for him to 'summon' his recall of events he had experienced, when he was not 'in' a particular timeline. Sometimes, it took longer than others for him to get caught up, and a few times, this delay had caused... problems.

“Yolanda,” he said, as she stood in the open doorway of her place, “I hope you got good news for me on the grub. Are we doing the full barbecue, or what?”

“We’re having Chinese takeout, and you know it,” she said, “and, don’t look at me like that. In fact, just why are you looking at me like that?”

“I didn’t know I was looking at you, like, any which way,” Trick said, but he was not fooling either of them. He had to get his fill, of seeing her face, every time. She would usually chalk it up to, “You just getting old” — she was twenty-three — and change the subject. Yolanda led him inside the cramped apartment she shared with her special dude, Jason, who wasted no time, updating Trick —

“Pacers are fire, right now. I don’t mean, they’re on fire — I mean, they are fire. Did you catch that spectacle they put on, last time? Think this new guy might just work out, but what do you think?” He located some amusement in Trick’s blank stare, laughing as he tried to set down his beer without spilling foam on himself (he was not entirely successful in this endeavor).

Trick had missed the game in question, of course, owing to commitments back in his own 'wave'. “Afraid not,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, as if he felt an inconsolable embarrassment. “It’s not as much fun for me when I can’t be here to catch it with you guys, you know that. New guy? Which one do you mean?” It would come to him; he had seen this game with Jason... and he also had not seen it. His sister's guy wanted to save him the trouble of recalling it.

“Obviously, I’m talking about the guy they liberated from Toronto. Head coach, I mean? That guy. Where were you just then, Jeph — something on your mind, like your kids? How many little monsters you got this year? Got to be an alpha male with them, if you want them to respect you.”

Smirking like someone who had figured out his secret, Yoli poked her big brother in an upper bicep with an index finger sporting a surprisingly sharp nail on its end. “I think it’s a fee-male," she said. “You’re always looking away, like you just remembered something, Jeph. So what’s she like, this woman, who has a vise grip on my brother’s imagination?"

Hang-dog, he slumped his shoulders, frowning with exaggerated sadness. “No love for the Trickster, I’m afraid — but I’ve got a packed schedule as it is.” Trick still had no intention of explaining the “Stream” to her; it was going to be a conversation to remember, even if she believed him. Raising the subject in her boyfriend’s presence held far less than zero appeal for him, as well, though he would dismiss it as banter.

“Is that right? Mister Big Shot — jetting off, on a schoolteacher’s salary, to parts unknown?” Yoli sounded as skeptical as she looked; he just grinned at her.

“You know me, baby sister,” said Trick, her brother-in-this-dimension, “I’m always on the lookout for a new adventure. Are we watching the game, or what?” Yoli laughed.

© Eric Wolf 2021.

[Roam the Multiverse with Trick: https://vocal.media/fiction/trick-s-own-indigo-awakening.]