Building Blocks (3 page)

“Twelve.”

“You're going into the seventh grade. I bet you can do long division.”

“Easy,” Brann said. “That's kid stuff. At my school we have to learn everything, like all the Presidents—”

“I know who the President is, it's Roosevelt. Franklin Delano Roosevelt again. My father voted for him, both times. My mother didn't the first time but she did last fall. Who did your father vote for?”

“I don't know,” Brann lied. He was busy remembering Social Studies classes: if it was Roosevelt and his second term, it had to be the Depression. This was about the weirdest dream he'd ever had. If there was a weird dream contest, this one was a sure winner. He did know who his father had voted for: McGovern. His father had backed the loser.

“Do you know how many states there are?” the boy asked.

“Fifty.”

“Nope, forty-eight. What's the capital of this state?”

“Albany,” Brann said.

“Nope, Harrisburg.”

Harrisburg? But Harrisburg was the capital of Pennsylvania. Now Brann knew a little more, like another block put into place. The boy sat on his bed looking smug. “What's the capital of California?” Brann asked.

“San Francisco?”

“Naw, Sacramento. Connecticut?”

“New Haven.”

“No, Hartford.” The kid didn't look smug any more. “Anyway, what's your name?”

“Kevin. What did you say yours was?”

“Brann with two n's.”

“That's a funny name.”

“It's Irish,” Brann explained.

“My father's part Irish,” the boy said. “Do you want to come over and sit on the bed? You still haven't said what you're doing here. You can't stay anyway, if he catches you. Don't knock over any more blocks. What are you doing here?”

“Waiting to wake up,” Brann answered. He picked his way carefully among fallen blocks. The bed creaked when he sat on it.

Kevin studied him, like a mouse looking at a snake. Brann wondered what the dream was going to be about. “Are you a runaway? I've read about runaway kids, but the papers say they go in gangs. That was a joke, wasn't it? About waking up? Want me to pinch you?”

Brann nodded, and the boy pinched him gently on the arm. “Harder,” Brann said. But it was no use. He was dreaming he was awake in Pennsylvania somewhere, during the Great Depression. He didn't feel like he was dreaming, he felt like he was awake. But that was impossible. “Never mind,” Brann said. He was asleep. He had to be. Impossible things didn't happen. “What time is it?”

“Late,” the boy said. “You can't stay here.”

“I know,” Brann said. “You don't have to tell me that. I don't want to anyway.” He heard two long whistles, like boat signals. But Pennsylvania didn't border on the ocean.

“I don't know what my father would say—he'd probably whip you or turn you over to the police, or both. He'd whip me too. He has a belt. It hurts; nothing hurts as much. So you've got to go.”

“Is the ocean near here?” Brann asked. Sometimes
in dreams you couldn't wake yourself up, no matter how hard you tried. You had to wait for things to get scary enough to wake you up. But he wasn't scared. If anyone was scared it was this Kevin kid, huddling in the bed with his sheet pulled up to his shoulders.

“The river, the Ohio River. I've never seen the ocean.”

“How am I supposed to get out?” Brann asked.

“How'd you get in?”

“I flew in the window,” Brann said. He giggled. In dreams wasn't that how you traveled, with your arms spread out, floating? “So I'll just fly out.” That would prove it for sure.

“That's not funny,” the boy said. “Did you come up the back stairs to the second floor and then up here? It's lucky you came to
my
room. If Grandma had seen you—she's old and her heart's not good. Grandpa is deaf, so nothing bothers him. Can you find your way down all right?”

“No,” Brann said. “Because I didn't come in, come up.” He was beginning to get scared. He tried to keep fear out of his voice, but the boy heard it.

“You've done something wrong, haven't you?” Kevin asked. Brann shook his head, then nodded it. He
didn't know. “And you don't want to talk about it.”

Brann nodded again. How could he say,
I fell asleep and when I woke up I wasn't where I'd been to fall asleep, and I think this is all a dream but it feels too real to be a dream. If it isn't a dream that means I've maybe traveled through time; but that's impossible.

Kevin's eyes took in everything about Brann. “Well,” he finally said, “I could take you out to the garage. You could sleep there. Maybe you could have breakfast with us. If you wanted to. Anyway. But you better think up a good story, because my mother is pretty sharp with strangers. If she thinks something's fishy, I'll tell her just what happened. I don't want to get whipped.”

“OK,” Brann said. Dreams could seem awfully real, he reminded himself.

They slipped off the bed. Kevin was sleeping in his underpants, just like ordinary kid. Brann pushed his feet down on the floor so hard the contact jarred up his ankles; but he still didn't wake up.

Kevin moved silently across the room and Brann followed as silently on bare feet. The boy opened the door and looked out. A light went on. With one hand Kevin pushed Brann back into the room. “Don't
move,” he hissed, as if their lives depended on it. Brann stood with his back flat against the wall, his heart beating in his ears, listening.

He heard shuffling footsteps, then an airy voice: “Kevin? Is that you? I thought I heard voices.”

Kevin stepped out into the hallway. “It's just me, Grandma.”

“I heard a noise, and then voices. But I thought I might be dreaming and you know how they go on if I wake them up. I listened. I tried to go back to sleep. It was whispering. Did you hear whispering?” The voice sounded urgent.

“I heard it, Grandma, don't worry. It was me. I got up and ran into the blocks. I knocked the whole building down, then I was talking to myself.”

“Why?”

“It was dark. I was lonely. I'm going downstairs now and get a glass of water so you'll hear that. I'll be coming upstairs again, so you'll hear that too. Don't worry.”

The two voices were receding, as if the speakers were walking away.

“I have never walked in my sleep,” the airy voice declared.

“I know, Grandma.”

“Nor snored.”

“Well now, I don't think that's true.”

“I knew you'd tell the truth. You're a good boy, Kevin.”

“I'm going to turn out the hall light.”

“That's nice.”

Brann waited a brief moment in darkness, then stepped into the doorway. Kevin grabbed his arm and they moved together down a dark hall. “Stairs,” Kevin whispered into Brann's ear, “eighteen.” He kept a light grip on Brann's arm.

Brann stepped out into the darkness and counted eighteen steps down, bare wood. On the lower floor the hallway was carpeted. Kevin crept along the hall at a snail's pace, his hand now painfully tight on Brann's arm.

“Down ten, then a landing, down another twenty.” The words were breathed into Brann's ear. Brann could feel the tenseness in the boy's body.

But why was Kevin scared? It was his own house. Kevin was more scared even than Brann, and Brann was moving around in darkness in a place he'd never seen before.

They crossed the ground floor. Brann saw dark, hulking shapes of furniture, dark doorways, and lighter window panes. He didn't think, he just followed the boy beside him. They stepped out onto a small porch and down five steps to a cement walk. It was lighter outside, and Brann saw Kevin's face white in the moonlight.

“Grandma's getting senile,” Kevin said. “It was after her stroke last winter. But it scares her when she can't remember things, or hears things that aren't there. It scares her when there's—an uproar. It's dangerous for her to be scared because if she has another stroke she'll probably die.”

“My grandfather got senile,” Brann said, to show that he sympathized. “But I never knew what it meant. I was too little, and they put him in a home. Your grandmother doesn't seem bad. I wonder why they put my grandfather away?”

“Away?”

“In a nursing home. They didn't let kids visit. I can't remember him at all. I only ever had one grandmother.”

“Why?”

“My other one, my father's mother, died when he was young.”

The night was warm, with a faint breeze to rustle the leaves of the trees. The humidity was high so the air hung close.

“That's the garage. There's a side door.”

“Is it locked?”

“Why should it be locked?”

A long, hooting sound slid through the dark air, coiling like a snake. Then Brann heard the train rushing along behind it. “Are you coming with me?”

Kevin shook his head. He was scared to go with Brann. He was littler than Brann, so Brann tried to be understanding; but he didn't feel understanding. Brann didn't want to go on alone into that dark place. He didn't want to be left alone. “What about tomorrow?” he asked, to keep the other boy's company a little longer.

“I don't know.”

“Could you find me and take me inside? As if you just found me?”

“What'll you tell them?”

“Who? Your parents? Can we tell them I go to your school?”

“They could find out it's not true.”

“Do they know everybody in your school?”

“I don't know. Brann? Maybe you should go somewhere else.”

“But I can't, not tonight. Where else could I go?” But in a dream, you went places without traveling. Brann sighed. He would get no help from this kid. “I'll take care of it. I'll think of something.”

“I guess so,” the boy said reluctantly.

It has to be a dream, Brann announced to himself. He stepped out confidently, without looking back, as he would in a dream.

Kevin didn't wait to see what happened. Brann heard him scuttering back toward the house.

Brann walked up to the low, dark building and turned the knob on the door. It opened easily. A truck was parked inside, an old-fashioned pickup with slatted sides to its back section and a rounded hood. The one-car garage smelled of gas and oil. The truck had a running board.

Brann gave himself extra credit for details in this dream and pulled down on the door handle. He climbed up onto the seat. Cloth, not plastic. He leaned against the door and shifted his body until it was comfortable.

He concentrated, the way he often did when he wanted to fall asleep, on pretending he was the son of someone else, imagining what his life would be like. The sooner he got to sleep the sooner he would wake up in his own house.

•   •   •

When he opened his eyes, faint sunlight filtered into the garage. His neck was stiff, his T-shirt was drenched with sweat, and a boy was staring at him through the curved windshield of an old-fashioned truck.

Brann couldn't think. He couldn't speak. He stared at the boy without seeing him. On television, in science fiction shows or “The Twilight Zone,” they showed people being whirled down dark tunnels—arms and legs spread out—down and away. They didn't show people just . . . waking up.

It wasn't a dream. It had to be a dream but it wasn't. He knew that now, for sure. He was somewhere out in time (which wasn't possible), and he had no idea how he'd gotten there. So he had no idea how to get back. (But that was impossible, really impossible. Impossible things didn't happen.) Dream or not—and it couldn't be a dream, he had to go to the bathroom. It wasn't a dream. He didn't belong anywhere or to
anyone, lost out here in time. He was absolutely alone.

And free, with nobody to make claims or tell him what to do, or suck him into their unhappy quarrels. The only person who knew who he was was this kid with his dark-fringed gray eyes and his broad, scared, fish mouth. And even he didn't know anything about Brann.

It was scary, dark and windy scary. It was also exciting. An adventure, some adventure back in time. It was crazy. Brann grinned. The boy smiled tentatively back at him. Brann opened the door to the truck and climbed out.

“I thought you might have gone,” Kevin said. He wore a pair of denim overalls without a shirt.

“So did I,” Brann said. His brain felt dizzy. “But I guess I'm still here. Sorry about that. It's fate I guess.”

“What does that mean, it's fate?”

“Fate? It's what has to happen and you can't fight it. What time's it? Where am I anyway?”

“Nearly seven. You're in our garage,” Kevin answered. He looked worried.

“I
know
that about the garage,” Brann didn't bother to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “What's the name of the town?”

“Sewickley,” Kevin said. His eyes were on the floor. Brann knew that he had hurt the boy's feelings, but he didn't much care.

“I'm hungry and I've gotta go to the bathroom,” Brann said. When somebody was this easy to boss, you couldn't do anything but bully him. “What's the name of a street where your parents wouldn't know who moved in, or be likely to meet them.”

“Second Street,” Kevin said.

“Don't worry, kid,” Brann clapped him on the shoulder. What was the matter with this kid anyway? “Nobody'll get you in trouble.” If this kid thought he had problems, he should try on the situation Brann was in. “Lead me inside. If I don't pee, I'll bust.”

They went around the truck, which was piled with copper pipes and coiled wires, and out of the smell of gasoline into the fresh air.

Kevin's house stood on a large lot, one among a row of houses that faced an asphalt road. They were all big, square, three-story houses, and they all had big lawns with tall trees growing around them. “What's your father do?” Brann asked.