Who I'm Not (16 page)

“No, I can't. People in Montreal will know.”

“But it's not your fault your father—”

“Maybe it is. Maybe if I wasn't so shitty…” She started to cry then. I wanted to touch her so bad. I lifted a hand and stopped.

“No,” I said. “Listen, I've hung with guys like your dad. They're the jerks and losers.”

Gillian hit me as I sat there. Buster yelped. On top of Griffin's backhander, it really hurt. I pushed on anyway. “And I'm no better. I'm one too. You're the good one.” I grabbed my pack. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I better go.”

“Are you really going?” She was sobbing.

“Yes,” I said. Back when I'd let myself feel, I'd felt bad in lots of ways, but never like this.

“When?”

I took a deep breath. “Tonight. That cop, Griffin. He's out to get me.”

“Tonight? So this is…where will you go?”

“Just…away,” I said. “Work a traveling carnival.” I didn't tell her it was the wrong season. “Maybe it'll come to Montreal.” And then we were just holding each other, my face buried in her jacket. “Anyway,” I said into her shoulder, “I can't stay here if you're going to be gone.”

She held me tighter. I heard her say, “I'll go with you.”

It stopped me dead. For an instant, the whole world opened up. Then it shut down. “You can't. You have to stick with your sister and your mom.”

“But what about Shan?”

“If I stay, I'll bring her more trouble than ever.”

Gillian let me go. Her glasses were crooked and her face was tear-stained. I looked at her and for the first time since I was little, I thought I was going to cry.

She straightened her glasses. “Be Adam,” she said.

THIRTY-FIVE

Now Gillian wiped her face. “I have to go. My mom will be calling any second.” I stood up. She said, “Something fell out of your pack.” Buster was sniffing at whatever it was. She bent down and lifted a folded piece of paper from the grass. It was the page of Young Harley mug shots. Part of one of the photos was showing. Gillian unfolded the paper. “Who is this?”

“It's some old pictures of the guy who took me away from the Bad Time. The one who died.”

“Was he a crook?”

“Kind of, I guess. Kind of a friend, too.” I'd never thought of Harley that way before, but now, in a way, it felt true.

Gillian stared at the photos. “That's wild. Well, I can see why he took you.” She refolded the paper and handed it back to me.

“Why? Because they paid him.”

She squinted at me. “That's not what I meant. You look just like him.”

“What?”

“You do. It's like an older you, with a moustache and bad hair.”

I didn't know what to say. I unfolded the paper and looked at Young Harley. I had no idea what she was talking about. Young Harley gave me the same blank, smart-ass look he always did. Me? That was me? It was too much. I put the paper in my pack and walked back up the hill with Gillian. Just before we got to her place, I tugged at her sleeve. “Gillian.” We stopped and kissed. It was mostly teeth. I was pretty bad at it.

“Sorry. I've never done this before,” I said, and it was true.

“That's okay,” Gillian said. “Neither have I.”

“We could try again.”

It was better the second time. Gillian's cell phone rang in her pocket. We stopped kissing. “That'll be my mom,” she said. “I have to go.” Up at her house, I could see the front door was open.

“I have your email,” I said. “I have your cell.”

She nodded. I patted Buster and she was gone.

I watched from the shadows until Gillian and her mom were inside. Then I walked; I had to keep moving. I told myself I was making a plan for how to get away as fast as I could, but I was tired and wired and my mind kept drifting. To Gillian. To Michael Bennett Davidson, 61472, out of Dayton, Ohio; arrests in San Fran and Portland, might have lived in Portland for a while. To me shouting and Harley lying in the parking lot, his head in that red puddle. To Ty. And then I'd start trembling. I told myself it was getting cold. I started for the little railway station, thinking I could just hang there until the morning train. I knew it would be deserted at night: there were only two trains a day that stopped in town. But when I got there, a police cruiser was idling in the parking lot, and I flashed crazily that Griffin had ratted me out. I turned away. I'd known where I had to go all along.

THIRTY-SIX

I went back to the park and wrote a note, but I knew it wasn't good enough. I put it in my pocket anyway. When I got to Shan's house, Gram and Grampy's RV was parked in the driveway. The house was dark except for the glow from the stove light in the kitchen. I knew she'd be in there. I knew it wasn't the first time and probably wouldn't be the last that Shan would be sitting up alone in the kitchen, waiting for someone to come home. Sure enough, when I went around and slipped through the kitchen door, she was sitting at the table in her pink fluffy housecoat, the cordless phone and her World's Best Mom mug in front of her. I stayed in the doorway.

“Gram and Grampy are here?”

“They're asleep in the RV.”

I nodded. Shan said, “You're not coming in, are you?” Her lip trembled.

“Something bad happened,” I said. “I have to go.”

She looked down. “Don't tell me anything. I don't want to know.”

“I—”

“No,” she said. “Don't. Please.” She gripped her mug with both hands.

“Shan—”

“NO!” She slammed the mug down on the table. It shattered. What was left of her tea splashed out, and a line of red began to trickle across one of her thumbs. I tore some paper towels from the holder under the kitchen cupboard. She wrapped them around her thumb and put her hands in her lap. She was crying now, but silently, her eyes screwed shut and her shoulders shaking.

I sat down at the table, across from her. “Will you tell me something? You don't have to.”

She didn't answer for a long time. Then she said, “What?”

I knew what I wanted to ask, but I didn't know how to ask it. “Did…Do you…”

Shan looked up at me. Her cheeks were streaked with wet. “I just wanted everything to be
right
.”

It was all I was going to get. Maybe I didn't need any more. I reached over and pushed at the pieces of broken mug in their tea puddle.

“You really are…” I said.

“Wh-what?”

“That.” I pushed the shard of mug toward her that said
World's Best
. “Thank you,” I said. “I wish I could stay.”

“Then why don't you?” It was her last shot.

It took me a long time to find an answer. Finally I said, “I'm a different person now.”

Shan closed her eyes. Outside, a car rolled by. Across the kitchen, the tap dripped. Time leaking down the drain. She nodded.

I stood up. “I won't take anything,” I said.

She looked at me. “Where—no, I don't want to know. How?”

I shrugged. “I'll just go.”

“That's—” She shook her head, pulling herself back together. “No, there's a way.” Now she looked right at me, a look as sharp as the shards of mug on the table. I nodded. I'd had the same idea. “All right,” she said. “Leave a note.”

“I don't know what to—”

“For Christ's sake,” she snapped. “Leave a note. Tell the kids you'll miss them. Tell—leave
me
a note.” She stood up and moved to the counter, scrounged up a pen and paper and pushed them at me. This time I wrote:

Dear Shan and everybody

Im sorry but I have to go. I have tried hard but Ive been so long away that I cant fit here anymore. Maybe it doesn't help but I told you a lie about what happened to me. I didnt get taken. I ran. It was bad with Ty and Momma before and I couldn't take it any more. I didn't want to say that when I came back. Some bad things happened to me while I was away but nothing I couldnt handle. Being away is what I am used to now. Please don't come after me it is better this way. Im sorry if I hurt you.

love

Danny

When I was done, I folded it up and gave it to Shan. She didn't try to read it. “Now,” she said. “Go up and get some sleep. I'll call you.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

The next morning, Gram and Grampy stopped for coffee and a washroom break right across the border, in Watertown, New York. When I guessed they'd be well away from the RV, I let myself out of the little closet near the back that I'd crammed into as they'd had breakfast in Shan's kitchen. I needed to go pretty bad myself. It was a bright fall day as I slipped away. I had my pack with some clothes, Griffin's money, Harley's mug shots and a couple books. Danny's neck chain I'd slipped into Shan's purse, on top of her car keys. Gillian's email address and cell number were in my head.

I'm not going to tell you where I am now. I'm not going to tell you how much time has gone by. Let's just say I'm all right and I'm in the territories. If you ever read
Huckleberry Finn
, you'll know what I mean. Maybe you've even been there.

Sometimes it's been scary and sometimes okay. I've served your burgers and poured your coffee and loaded your shopping cart. I've shared a squat with you. I've sold you clothes and books. I've lined up with you at food banks and shelters and bus stops and libraries and clinics. I've sat beside you in freshman English, said yes to you in improv class, even been in a TV commercial you saw and two plays you didn't. I've taken your drinks order and recommended a wine. I've done a lot of things, including some I'm not proud of. I've never forgotten.

I might be called Adam Davidson, Ben Adams, David Adamson, Adam Gillian, Gill Adams. Or Sean Callahan. Or Frank Rolfe. The name doesn't really matter, does it? I'm short. I'm a pretty fast runner. I don't like marshmallows. I keep to myself. I try not to take dumb chances, just do what I have to do. I think I'm loyal. I think I know what's true. I know where I've been. I know where I want to go. Montreal is on that list. One day I'm going to Portland, Oregon, to check the birth records for March 29, 19— well, never mind the year. In the meantime, I send birthday emails to Shan and Gillian. I miss them.

Maybe you'll meet me. Maybe we've already met. It doesn't matter. I could be anybody, but I'll know who I am.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. The characters and incidents I describe are purely imaginary. However, the situation at the heart of my story—an imposter claiming to be a missing child—does come from real life. I stumbled upon it in an article by the American journalist David Grann, “The Chameleon
,
” which appeared in the August 11 & 18, 2008, issue of
The New Yorker.
In it, Grann told the almost unbelievable story of a Frenchman in his twenties who, in 1997, impersonated a missing teen from San Antonio, Texas. Anyone looking for proof that truth is stranger than fiction need look no further than Grann's reporting. (The story became the subject of a British documentary film,
The Imposter,
released in 2012, which at the time of this writing I have not seen.)

Grann's reporting led me to wonder about a character who's not just an adept imposter, but someone who literally doesn't know who he is—a kind of permanent imposter. My story took its own path from there.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As I mention in my author's note, the spark for this novel came from David Grann's superb non-fiction piece in
The New Yorker.
Without that to fire my imagination, there'd be no
Who I'm Not
. My thanks to him.

I also owe a big debt to many people closer to home for their support, encouragement and willingness to be pestered while I was writing a book that was more than a small change of pace for me. My longtime friend and colleague Peter Carver stands in the front rank.

My thanks as well to David Bennett at the Transatlantic Agency for his enthusiasm and energy on behalf of the book, and for two key insights that became crucial to shaping my story.

I'd also like to acknowledge the assistance of the Ontario Arts Council via a Writers' Reserve Grant, and thank Richard Dionne of Red Deer Press for helping make that possible. It was greatly appreciated.

My friend and neighbor Mark Vandervennen, executive director of the Shalem Mental Health Network, helped me understand how “Danny” would experience the world. His vast experience with kids like my main character kept things in focus. I'm grateful.

And, of course, my thanks to everyone at Orca, particularly Andrew for his quick support of this project and to the ever-patient, ever-logical Sarah “Why? What's
that
about
?
” Harvey, who so deftly edits my ramblings.

Finally, as always, the biggest thanks go to my son Will and my better half, Margaret. I'd only light out for the territories if they came too.