Chapter 37

Eric Walker

He slept in that morning. Skipping school was no problem. Well it was, but not the kind of problem that Eric cared about. Leah woke him up by allowing Frisby Wiser to attack him in the face. Eric opened his eyes to the sight of an angry stuffed red dragon. “Get up!” Frisby growled. “You’ll be late.” Leah also had no school. Eric was theoretically supposed to “take care of her,” but Leah pretty much took care of herself. She was like…like a cactus.

What time was it? A little after nine o’clock. Maybe nine fifteen. He could always tell when he woke up. “Her flight doesn’t come in ‘till noon,” he said, his voice halfway muffled by the plushy dragon. “Get outta here, Frisby.”

“I made something for her,” Frisby told him. “I mean, Leah did.”

Eric groaned. “I’m surrounded by role-players.” He sat up in his bed and yawned. “What did she make, Sir Wiser?”

Leah had a big roll of white poster paper, and she slid it into Frisby’s little clawed arms. Eric kept his eyes on the dragon as it presented the roll of paper to him. He received it ceremoniously and made a show of unrolling it like a scroll. He smirked. A welcome sign for Heidi. It had her name in big red letters, surrounded by all kinds of little pictures and incomprehensible scribbling in different colors. It would certainly stand out. There was a big crayon drawing of a girl that Eric thought was supposed to be Heidi. There was a computer on one side of her and some kind of black lizard on the other.

The sign might be helpful, though, since he didn’t really know what she looked like. Heidi, like Kate, wasn’t on Instagram or anything.

“Thanks, Frisby,” he said as he re-rolled the poster.

“Hee hee,” Frisby said in a little girl’s voice. Then, in his normal deep growly voice, “I mean, ho ho ho.”

“Hey Frisby, have you noticed there’s this little dragonfly following you everywhere?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “I must be going now.” Frisby Wiser flapped his wings and soared up and away, and out of Eric’s room.

The door to Eric’s room could be locked. He often thought about locking it, but he never did.

He checked his phone. The time was nine twenty, meaning that his earlier estimate had been off by only about two minutes. Nice. Miraculously, no one had messaged him overnight, except Heidi to provide a brief update about arrival time. Eric was thankful for this. He didn’t need any more craziness today. Meeting Heidi would be interesting enough.

He took another look at the welcome poster Leah had made. Did he really want this to be Heidi’s first impression of him? Eh. Whatever.

He dressed in simple jeans and a plain blue t-shirt, with a light jacket because it was still a little chilly in Chicago. He ate a bowl of cereal with toast for breakfast. He said goodbye to Leah, told her he’d be back soon with Heidi, and left for the metro stop.

He transferred to the blue line without difficulty and without any unusual events. It was when he was on the blue line that he received the phone call.

He hesitated to answer it because the number was all zeroes. He had never seen anything like that before. But it begged to be answered. So he did.

“Hello?” he said. “Eric Walker here.”

In response he received only hissing static and garbled noise, like someone shouting through a seriously fucked-up short-wave radio tuned a few degrees off-channel. But he could tell, despite the noise, that someone was trying to speak to him.

“Can’t hear you, bro. Bad connection I guess?” More noise. “Maybe you should try calling on a cell phone next time instead of a potato.”

It cleared up for a moment. He could barely make out a few words: “try…you this…hear me?” The static dropped off sharply on those last two words.

“Hear you? Barely, dude.”

“…hang…this…piece of…”

Eric amused himself by imagining that the static was censoring, and that the words he couldn’t hear were all expletives. He waited to see if the situation improved.

The static dropped away, reduced to a low hiss in the background. “What about this?” said the voice on the other end. The voice was still glitchy and garbled, as though transmitting from the moon, but Eric could make out the words.

“Okay, yeah, now I can hear you.”

“Good. I’m a little short on time here, so I’ll try to make it quick.”

“You know, I never believe people when they say stuff like that. Like, if you were really short on time, you wouldn’t waste time by—”

“Shut up and listen.”

“Yeah, that’s better.”

“My name is Eric Walker. I’m you in the future.”

“Huh,” said Eric. He checked the rest of the train car. Only two other people: an old lady and a guy on his phone, both down at the other end, not paying attention to him. “Go on.”

“Aha, man I forgot I…” His voice became incomprehensible before fading back in. “… don’t believe me.”

“Nah,” said Eric. He listened hard to the voice. Could it be the voice of someone he knew? Could it be his voice? It was so distorted that he couldn’t tell.

The static distortions abruptly cleared. “Of course not. I wouldn’t have believed it back then. That’s cool, whatever. When it all happens, you’ll remember.”

“Aren’t you short on time?”

The person on the other end laughed. The static went wild, so Eric could barely make out the words when the other person started speaking again. “…idea how funny that is…fucking ironic.”

“Whoa, language.”

“Shut up. Just stop. You…need to explain…nevermind. I don’t know how much…” The voice broke up, flooded with static.

“Better hurry, bro,” said Eric.

“Listen up: when she falls— if she falls, check the pockets.”

“Check pockets. Got it.”

The voice became increasingly garbled. “…have to take…can’t let Isaac…don’t trust…hear me?”

The call ended just as Eric was about to respond. He looked at the ended call; the all-zeroes number. Him from the future? Now if he were Isaac, he would believe that this was a call from his future self just because he wanted something like that to happen. And if he were Jim, he would believe it because Jim is the definition of gullible. And if he were Kate, he would probably somehow just know whether or not it was true.

But he was Eric, and only a few months ago he and Isaac had discussed this exact scenario, and had decided on code words in case either of them ever came back from the future. It was stupid, but he was pretty sure he would have remembered had such a thing actually come to pass. And he hadn’t heard anything about Ratatat, his code word.

The number was listed under his recent calls. He blocked it. After a moment of contemplation, he texted Isaac.

EW: bro

IM: yeah?

EW: quick question

EW: and i hate to ask this but

EW: any weird shit goin down over there

IM: Weird? nah, not really

IM: But there’s a guy who snaps his fingers to make light and always has birds around him

IM: And some monster on the loose killing people

IM: And that crack in the sky, remember that? It’s still there

EW: sure but what about phone calls from your future self

IM: Not yet

IM: Did that happen to you?

IM: Did he say the code word?

EW: nah so i think it might be a fraud

EW: still weird though

IM: Okay my turn for a question

EW: shoot

IM: You play set, right?

EW: was that the question?

EW: i can’t shake the feeling weve been over this

EW: like dude you got me drumsticks for christmas

IM: That wasn’t the question!

IM: That was, like, the set-up question

IM: I ask it, you answer, and then I go on to my real question

EW: whats the point asking a question you know the answer to

IM: Bro it helps to establish conversational flow

EW: are you serious

IM: Keep up

IM: I was introducing the topic, thereby setting us up for the question

IM: It’s a common conversational tactic

EW: ok stop

EW: i dont care

EW: this is some fucking banana quest level bullshit

EW: and were not even conversing this is just a chat conversation so the “flow” is meaningless

IM: Whatever, man!

EW: just ask the question

EW: the real one

IM: Okay

IM: Do you read percussion notation or do you just play beats by ear

IM: Like, according to the style at the top of the rhythm chart

EW: the fuck is a rhythm chart

IM: ...

IM: Okay you have successfully answered my question

IM: hmm

IM: I actually don’t know anything about writing for percussion

IM: Maybe you can be on the triangle

IM: or cowbell

EW: id rock that cowbell

EW: oh and i can read rhythm charts

IM: You just said you didn’t even know what they are!

EW: well i looked it up and it turns out its what ive been using the whole time

EW: just forgot the name

EW: so yeah go ahead and write it like that

IM: ok cool

IM: Hey you know what kind of saxophone Heidi plays?

EW: why would i know that

EW: and why are you asking me?

EW: ask heidi

IM: I don’t think she likes talking to me

IM: I think she thinks I’m an idiot

EW: three guesses whose fault that is

IM: What did I do?

IM: I just talked to her normally!

EW: exactly bro theres your problem

EW: dude you gotta break out your top-shelf moves

EW: start recommending weird books and shit

EW: boring ass symphonies

EW: chicks dig it bro

IM: Actually that’s what Kate just told me

IM: I guess Heidi’s into “weird books and shit”?

EW: see? i would never lead you astray

IM: Okay one more thing

IM: random question

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IM: You shave?

EW: wtf why

EW: do you?

IM: Soon, brother

IM: soon.

IM: I ask because Jacob, the bird guy, he’s got this scruffy beard

EW: i shave like once every two weeks

EW: and its already a pain in the ass i dont know how grown ass men deal with shaving every damn morning

IM: Bro just do what Dwayne does

EW: you referring to the santa claus strat?

IM: The Father Time maneuver

EW: the moses gambit

IM: The Socratic Shave

EW: haha maybe someday

IM: bewhiskerment aside, do you play keys

EW: bro you know im shit at piano

IM: I mean like hammered keys

IM: like xylophones and stuff

EW: dude

EW: were not having a fucking xylophone in our piece

IM: Just asking!

IM: and why not?

EW: cause its lame bro

IM: I like xylophones

EW: listen this has been a real edifying conversation but im almost at the airport

IM: All right. Let me know if anything else weird happens

EW: bro we are gonna have to up our standards about what that means

At the airport Eric had time to chill, which was fine with him. He bought a latte at Starbucks, browsed the paperback books on a bookstand, wandered around, then sat down near the arrival gates and caught up on some blogs on his phone. A little notification came up in his mind when Heidi’s flight was scheduled to arrive; he didn’t even need to check the time. He gave it another ten minutes for disembarking.

He tried to be chill as he waited by the arrival gate. He would be the first out of all of them to meet Heidi in person. And the first thing Heidi would see was this crazy colorful mess Leah had made. That was fine. People flowed past as he searched for someone who might be Heidi.

“Eric Walker?”

Eric turned around as someone tapped him on the shoulder. He immediately identified this person as Heidi. She wore sandals, cargo shorts and a plain black tank top. Short dark hair, a blue bandana tied around her head like a headband, dark brown eyes. Her skin was dark from the sun, her facial features broad. She wore an army-style backpack. The only real surprise was her height: she barely came up to his shoulder. Most girls his age were taller than Eric.

“That’s me,” he said.

Heidi took a moment to check out Leah’s poster. “Nice,” she said. She looked back up at him. “You always wear sunglasses indoors?”

“You always so short?” He said it without thinking. He visualized little people in the control center of his brain scrambling to turn off the “comeback” switch.

Heidi punched him in the arm. Hard. She smiled, then her eyes widened in horror. “Wait! I’m sorry!”

“Ow,” said Eric, playing it off like the punch hadn’t hurt at all. But really, it had actually hurt. He noticed that although short, Heidi was bulky. Thick, but not with fat. He thought he should keep this observation to himself, though.

Heidi bit her lip, and it was hard to tell because of her tan but Eric thought she was blushing. Embarrassed? About hitting him?

“Naw, don’t worry about it,” he said, putting forth conscious effort to avoid massaging the place she had hit. “I guess I deserved that.” She looked relieved. Her eyes went back to Leah’s poster as though to avoid looking at him. Was she shy? “So you’re Heidi, right?” he asked. “I didn’t just get punched by some random girl?”

She nodded. “Um…did you make this?” she asked, still looking at Leah’s poster.

“Oh yeah, sure. Practiced for weeks. Had to break out the really top-shelf crayons for this one.” For a moment Heidi visibly struggled to assess whether it was sarcasm. God dammit, Eric. He smiled in order to help her out.

She smiled back, a little nervously. Wow, this first impression was going just fantastically. Should he say that? To break the ice? Affirmative; it’s a go.

“Wow,” he said with a laugh, “this whole first impression business is off to a great start.”

She giggled nervously. “Should…we try again?” she asked.

“Huh…” Eric rolled up the poster. “Yeah, okay.” He turned around and unrolled the poster, pretending to look for someone out in the crowd.

He felt a hesitant tap on his left shoulder. He turned around smoothly, struck a nonchalant pose and inclined his head in acknowledgement. “‘Sup.”

Heidi shook her head. “Really?”

“What?”

“Kate told me to expect something like this.”

“Like what? What else did she say?”

Instead of answering Heidi took the poster from Eric and looked at it more closely. “So did your sister make this?”

“Yeah. Hey, you have any luggage?”

“No. Just this.” She shrugged the backpack.

“Then let’s get outta here. We can, like, converse awkwardly on the way back to my place.”

Heidi nodded. “Okay.” She took possession of the poster on the way to the blue line. Eric was happy to let her keep it.

“So what kind of things do you like?” Eric asked as he bought a CTA ticket for Heidi. “You do sports?”

“Some. Maybe. Is surfing a sport?”

“Sure, I guess. Yeah, I bet you don’t have any leagues out in fuckin Tuvalu.”

“It’s New Zealand, technically.”

“Bet it was a pain to get here.”

Heidi shrugged. “I’ve had long flights before.”

“You play basketball?”

“Not really.”

“Huh. Yeah I guess it’d be hard since you’re so shor—”

This time it was a side fist, not a direct punch. It nevertheless carried enough force to shove Eric against the railing of the stairway. Once more, it was rather painful. This time Heidi did not appear apologetic about it. She stoically descended the stairs as though nothing had happened. Eric grinned and skipped a few steps to catch up with her.

Heidi spoke before he could say something. “What sports do you play, since you’re so interested? Basketball?”

“Yeah, I like basketball. But my real game is Frisbee.”

“Frisbee is not a sport,” said Heidi. She didn’t look at Eric when she spoke; she looked ahead at where they were walking.

“Oh, yes it is,” said Eric.

“No it isn’t.”

“It is, though.”

Now she looked at him. “I don’t think it is.”

“You can’t win, Heidi. I’m too good at this game.”

Her brows scrunched in confusion, but her mouth curved into a hint of a smile. Eric had to admit she actually looked pretty cool in that bandana. And with that backpack, and with her relaxed, confident stance, she looked like she knew what she was doing.

They stood in silence while they waited for the train.

An hour later Eric approached the door of his apartment. It swung open before he reached it, revealing an angry Leah+Frisby combo, poised in attack position. Leah leveled a hand at Eric, fingers spread as though casting a spell. “Eric!” she said. “I saw you hit her.”

Heidi joined Eric in front of the door. “What?” said Eric.

“You hit Heidi. On the sidewalk. I saw it.”

“Oh yeah. Well, she called me lame.”

“That doesn’t matter. Frisby is mad!”

“No see that’s like our thing now. We punch each other. Less than an hour and our relationship has already become mutually abusive.”

Heidi raised her eyebrows, but Leah continued scowling at Eric.

“Okay, watch this,” said Eric. “Leah, have you noticed that you and Heidi are about the same size?”

He tried dodging it but Heidi was too fast. Her blow landed squarely on a previous bruise. Eric winced. “It’s actually a show of affection,” he explained to Leah. She did not look convinced.

Heidi rolled her eyes and walked past Eric up to Leah. She bent down to talk to Leah, but just a little. “I’m Heidi,” she said. “Are you Leah?”

Leah beamed. “Yes,” she said. “And this is Frisby Wiser, a dragon.” She held up the stuffed red dragon.

Heidi held up the rolled-up poster. “I liked your poster,” she said. “Can I come in?”

Leah considered this seriously for a moment before nodding and stepping aside so Heidi could enter. She slammed the door on Eric before he could join them. Eric sighed and dug in his pocket for the keys. He also took this opportunity to massage his upper arm and shoulder. He liked the whole physical-contact-camaraderie deal, but maybe Heidi was a little overzealous. So Leah had seen them on the sidewalk? Had she been watching from the balcony? They were on the ninth floor!

When he entered, he saw Leah marching around the apartment, pointing out sites of interest as though imparting vital information. Heidi looked like she was enjoying it.

“…and you got a package,” said Leah a minute later, wrapping up the tour back in the kitchen. “It came in the mail.” She put a lot of weight into this statement because Leah was fascinated by the whole idea of mail and still thought it was some kind of magic.

“Oh yeah,” said Eric. He pointed it out for Heidi: a plain cardboard box the size of a shoebox, sitting on the table. It was pretty heavy.

Heidi approached the box. She reached out to the side and removed a knife from the knife block on the kitchen counter without looking at it. Something about the casual way she just knew where the knives were made Eric smile. Oh yeah. No doubt about it: he was dealing with a badass, even if she did actually have to reach up a little to get the knife.

She made three quick, clean swipes without hesitation, severing the packaging tape of the box. She set down the knife, opened the box, and removed…another knife. Not a kitchen knife, though. A pocket knife. Heidi dropped it into one of the pockets of her cargo shorts.

Then she pulled a handgun out of the box. Eric’s eyes widened as she casually checked the chamber and clip, and then searched around in the box. “Was this the only box?” she asked. “Can’t ship firearms and ammo together in the same package, so I guess…” She trailed off looking at Eric and Leah. “What?”

“It’s just, uh, a little surprising,” said Eric. The return address on that box was from Texas, but…had Heidi mailed herself a gun because she couldn’t fly with one? No, more likely this was the work of Alan Sheppard. “You know, Chicago’s not that dangerous if you pay attention.”

“It’s not Chicago,” replied Heidi as she unslung her backpack and casually shoved the handgun into it. Leah’s rolled up poster followed, but with greater care.

“Okay,” said Eric. “Leah, we haven’t gotten any other package for Heidi yet, right?”

Leah gave a firm and official nod. Then she turned and wandered off. Eric and Heidi watched her leave. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” said Heidi. “With the gun. I hope Leah’s okay with it.”

“She’ll be fine. And I’m not scared. It’s just that we got first Kate, then Jim, saying maybe something big’s about to happen. And seeing the gun is just, like, confirmation. Like ‘oh shit, I guess Heidi knows too, and she’s preparing for it.’ So maybe I should be ready too. But ready for what?”

Heidi shrugged and sat down at the table. She shuffled through the mail and papers haphazardly strewn. “Alan’s the one who knows what’s going on. More than me.”

“Huh,” said Eric. He joined her at the table.

Heidi picked up an informational packet. “This has your name on it,” she said. She flipped through it. “You want to be in the Coast Guard?”

“Thinking about it,” said Eric. “Not really a good swimmer, though. Yet. Gonna practice this summer.”

“I’m a good swimmer.”

“Haha, yeah I bet.”

“And what’s this?” Heidi switched her attention over to a stack of printer paper covered in arcane markings and codified symbolic systems.

“These are called rhythm charts,” said Eric, glad that he had just looked this up. “They’re like sheet music for people who can’t read sheet music, which is, percussionists like me. I’ve been practicing jazz standards so I’m ready for our number.”

“‘Our number?’“

“Yeah, the one Isaac’s writing. You know, the one Kate wants us all to play. You’re on sax, I hope you know that. By the way, which kind of sax do you play? Isaac wants to know.”

“…Tenor.”

“Great. Do you like jazz?”

“Yes. Well, Alan does especially. I do too I guess.”

“You’re in the right city. Oh!” Eric stood. “Almost forgot. Come on.” He led Heidi down the hall toward his room. His door was open just a crack. He stopped beside it, holding an arm out in caution to Heidi. “Hold up,” he said, suddenly serious. “Something’s wrong.”

Heidi tensed behind him. “What is it?”

Eric raised his voice a little. “I think there’s a dragonfly in my room,” he said.

“Oh,” said Heidi. “Is that…a problem?”

“Well you know, the thing with dragonflies,” he said as he crept toward the door, “is that they grow up to be dragons.” He burst through the door into his room. It was empty. He turned and invited Heidi in. She entered hesitantly, keeping an eye on him.

“I don’t see a dragonfly,” she said after a moment.

“Well they’re pretty small. If there were a dragonfly in here, for instance, hiding under the bed…” Eric sat down on his bed. “It would be a real shame because she’d be so busy hiding that she wouldn’t be able to come to the park with us this afternoon.”

Small, soft claws attacked Eric’s left foot from under the bed. “Raaahhh!” said Frisby Wiser.

“Oh shoot we’re too late. It’s already a dragon.” Eric stood as Frisby’s claws around his ankle were replaced by Leah’s hands. With a mighty step he dragged her out from under the bed. She giggled. “Get outta here, Leah,” he said. “Go get ready. We’ll head up to the park soon.”

Leah scampered away. Eric looked at Heidi. “You don’t mind if she comes, right?” Heidi shook her head. “I mean she was coming regardless,” Eric said as he sat down at his desk chair. He booted up his computer and began the inordinately long process of running his digital audio workstation.

“I didn’t know you played piano,” said Heidi, examining his keyboard.

“I don’t, really. I just use that for making music. It’s actually a garbage keyboard, but that’s fine. The sound all goes through here.” He gestured at his mixing equipment.

“But you do play drums,” said Heidi, now over by his electric set.

“Yes, the drums I do play.” Eric finally got the program running. He had over thirty sound files which he considered to be complete songs, or at least complete pieces of songs that could be looped with variations or mashed together. Kate, his biggest fan, and Isaac, his most helpful critic, had heard almost all of them. He was a little more picky about what he showed Liz and Jim.

“I heard some of your music from Kate,” said Heidi, now looking over his shoulder at his laptop screen. “That looks complicated.” The DAW filled the screen with numbers, graphs, dials, virtual mixing boards.

“Heh. It’s not really…well yeah it is, actually. But the systems repeat. Like, you only really need to learn like ten percent of this stuff and you’ve already got most of it.”

“I understand,” said Heidi. Right, of course she understood. She programmed computers for fun. In fact, Eric now felt a little embarrassed about claiming that Fruity Loops Studio was complicated. It was to him, but…

“So…what did Kate show you?”

“Just a couple songs. She really likes your music.”

“Actually I think she really likes pretty much all music,” said Eric. “Her taste is indiscriminate, like with Isaac and his pulp fantasy.”

“Heh. Yeah.”

“Well…” said Eric. “What did you think of my music?” Eric laughed internally. Here he was, asking this question only after making a big show of getting ready to show her some of his music. Like, what, just assuming she’d be into it? Wow, dude.

“It was…interesting,” said Heidi.

“Interesting.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll take it,” said Eric as he opened his most recent project. He thought Heidi would probably be more interested in how it was all made and put together than in the finished product.

He was right.