11/22/63

“If it’s real, it’s old,” I said.

“Just put the money in your pocket, Jake.”

I did.

“Are you carrying a pocket calculator? Any other electronics?”

“Nope.”

“I guess you’re good to go, then. Turn around so you’re looking at the back of the pantry.” Before I could do it, he slapped his forehead and said, “Oh God, where are my brains? I forgot the Yellow Card Man.”

“The who? The what?”

“The Yellow Card Man. That’s just what I call him, I don’t know his real name. Here, take this.” He rummaged in his pocket, then handed me a fifty-cent piece. I hadn’t seen one in years. Maybe not since I was a kid.

I hefted it. “I don’t think you want to give me this. It’s probably valuable.”

“Of course it’s valuable, it’s worth half a buck.”

He got coughing, and this time it shook him like a hard wind, but he waved me off when I started toward him. He leaned on the stack of cartons with my stuff on top, spat into the wad of napkins, looked, winced, and then closed his fist around them. His haggard face was now running with sweat.

“Hot flash, or somethin like it. Damn cancer’s screwing with my thermostat along with the rest of my shit. About the Yellow Card Man. He’s a wino, and he’s harmless, but he’s not like anyone else. It’s like he knows something. I think it’s only a coincidence — because he happens to be plumped down not far from where you’re gonna come out — but I wanted to give you a heads-up about him.”

“Well you’re not doing a very good job,” I said. “I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”

“He’s gonna say, ‘I got a yellow card from the greenfront, so gimme a buck because today’s double-money day.’ You got that?”

“Got it.” The shit kept getting deeper.

“And he does have a yellow card, tucked in the brim of his hat. Probably nothing but a taxi company card or maybe a Red & White coupon he found in the gutter, but his brains are shot on cheap wine and he seems to thinks it’s like Willy Wonka’s Golden Ticket. So you say, ‘I can’t spare a buck but here’s half a rock,’ and you give it to him. Then he may say…” Al raised one of his now skeletal fingers. “He may say something like, ‘Why are you here’ or ‘Where did you come from.’ He may even say something like, ‘You’re not the same guy.’ I don’t think so, but it’s possible. There’s so much about this I don’t know. Whatever he says, just leave him there by the drying shed — which is where he’s sitting — and go out the gate. When you go he’ll probably say, ‘I know you could spare a buck, you cheap bastard,’ but pay no attention. Don’t look back. Cross the tracks and you’ll be at the intersection of Main and Lisbon.” He gave me an ironic smile. “After that, buddy, the world is yours.”

“Drying shed?” I thought I vaguely remembered something near the place where the diner now stood, and I supposed it might have been the old Worumbo drying shed, but whatever it had been, it was gone now. If there had been a window at the back of the Aluminaire’s cozy little pantry, it would have been looking out on nothing but a brick courtyard and an outerwear shop called Your Maine Snuggery. I had treated myself to a North Face parka there shortly after Christmas, and got it at a real bargain price.

“Never mind the drying shed, just remember what I told you. Now turn around again — that’s right — and take two or three steps forward. Little ones. Baby steps. Pretend you’re trying to find the top of a staircase with all the lights out — careful like that.”

I did as he asked, feeling like the world’s biggest dope. One step… lowering my head to keep from scraping it on the aluminum ceiling… two steps… now actually crouching a little. A few more steps and I’d have to get on my knees. That I had no intention of doing, dying man’s request or not.

“Al, this is stupid. Unless you want me to bring you a carton of fruit cocktail or some of these little jelly packets, there’s nothing I can do in h—”

That was when my foot went down, the way your foot does when you’re starting down a flight of steps. Except my foot was still firmly on the dark gray linoleum floor. I could see it.

“There you go,” Al said. The gravel had gone out of his voice, at least temporarily; the words were soft with satisfaction. “You found it, buddy.”

But what had I found? What exactly was I experiencing? The power of suggestion seemed the most likely answer, since no matter what I felt, I could see my foot on the floor. Except…

You know how, on a bright day, you can close your eyes and see an afterimage of whatever you were just looking at? It was like that. When I looked at my foot, I saw it on the floor. But when I blinked—either a millisecond before or a millisecond after my eyes closed, I couldn’t tell which — I caught a glimpse of my foot on a step. And it wasn’t in the dim light of a sixty-watt bulb, either. It was in bright sunshine.

I froze.

“Go on,” Al said. “Nothing’s going to happen to you, buddy. Just go on.” He coughed harshly, then said in a kind of desperate growl: “I need you to do this.”