When You Reach Me

Magic Thread

Mom is jumping up and down, and I hear the sound of hundreds of people cheering and clapping, lifting me like a wave and carrying me. I am out of my seat, I am floating down the aisle, people are patting me on the back or reaching out to squeeze my arm, and then the stage is in front of me, I am going up some steps, and then light is everywhere, too bright, and it’s hot.

Mom is still leaping around. She’s hugging her celebrity, she’s hugging Dick Clark. One of her barrettes is down by the side of her face, hanging on for dear life and banging against her cheek. She hugs me, and my head is pulled up and down as she jumps, so that I am forced to jump with her.

I feel happy. I smile and grab Mom’s hands and jump up and down with her. I let go of her and raise my arms over my head and feel the audience roar louder.

I am not thinking of the wall-to-wall carpet, or the camera, or the trip to China.

I am jumping up and down because at the very moment Dick Clark said the word “Go,” it was like an invisible hand reached out and snatched away my veil. And for almost a minute, I understood everything. When that veil isn’t hanging down right in front of a person’s face, a minute is long enough to realize a lot of things.

I realized that when you took our key from the fire hose, when you left me the notes, when you stole Richard’s shoes and Jimmy’s Fred Flintstone bank, you had already read my letter. You had read it many times, even though I have not yet written it.

That’s how you knew where the key was, even before you asked. That’s how you knew everything. I will tell you, in my letter. The letter you asked me to write.

“But that’s impossible!” my brain squawked. “You’re saying the laughing man read a letter that you haven’t even written yet! It makes no sense!”

Common sense is just a name for the way we’re used to thinking.

Time travel is possible.

You came to save Sal. And finally—finally!—I understood.

Dick Clark never ages. I thought of what Marcus had said about going to the movies in my time machine, that if I didn’t leave until I was sixty-two, the ticket guy wouldn’t recognize me.

I might not even recognize myself.

Maybe Dick Clark never ages. But the rest of us will. I will. Sal will, thanks to you. And Marcus will, too.

Please deliver your letter by hand, your note said. You know where to find me.

I thought of the beat-up metal door next to the garage, and I thought, “Yes, I do.” Because you are still here after all, to read my letter. Marcus is here. And when he reads the letter, he’ll realize that he has seen himself arrive, before he left. That’s what my letter is for.

And then, in who-knows-what year—the year of the burn scale, the year of the dome—Marcus will come back. You will come back. You will come back with a mouth full of paper. You won’t be yourself when you reach me but you will get the job done. You will save Sal. You already have.

Marcus is the magic thread. You are the laughing man. You are Marcus. Marcus is the laughing man. Or he will be, when he’s old.

“None of it makes sense!” my brain yelled.

“But all of it is true,” I answered.

Like I said, it lasted just under a minute. It lasted fifty-five seconds, to be precise. Which is how long it took Mom to guess six categories and win ten thousand dollars.

And then Mom and I are on the stage together, jumping up and down until they make us get off.