The memory montage in the virtual reality headset looks like this:
Calling 888-8888 from the condo hotel, the dispatcher of the taxi cab service is Dr. Nutmeg who helps me travel without a credit card to Marga's house before mashing my head with hers to time travel backwards, before I had sex with Sky Bowman to Mrs. Lanny's class, suddenly understanding the deja vu I felt there and riding my bike up University Boulevard, down Goldenrod, across Bates Road, telling Marga that I felt like I was repeating the same thing over and over like I was going to die soon, and then I see the memory I don't remember.
I am jumping.
Falling.
About to hit the icy water...
I am dying.
Am I dying?
No. I am not dying. I am sitting in the back of a taxi cab, speeding across the Williamsburg Bridge. A small TV screen plays commercials for something called Travelocity and Kayak on the console between me and the driver. Outside the window, the Twin Towers are replaced by a single shiny middle finger. It makes me laugh. I look at my hands. They are not robot hands. They are human hands. "What year is this?"
"Uh, 2019," says the driver. I see Dad looking at me in the rearview mirror. He is driving. His hair is not black anymore. It's white. "You know, I used to be a cab driver, before I was a police officer."
"Dad? Did you just save me?"
"I couldn't let you end such a beautiful life." I can see his tears in the rear view mirror.
"Thank you, Dad....because, you know, jumping off a bridge during winter time in New York is kind of a cliché."
"After you left the condo hotel, we didn't know if you would come back, and then you didn't come home for thirty years. We missed you so much...I figured, I could break the space-time continuum and find you here in the future...before you jumped."
"Oh," I say, looking out the window at the new cars swishing past our yellow taxi cab. "This is future New York? I really did make it here?"
"I worried about you the most."
I watch the screen in front of me, wondering how there is a TV inside a moving vehicle. I look at my dear old Dad. "Better late than never. Thank you, Dad for coming to rescue me. Thank you, Dad, for picking me up, and bringing me home."
As we travel down I-95, at 88 miles per hour, I see that Dad's hair is no longer white. He is young again, and so am I.
YOU ARE READING
Model Ricans
ParanormalA Nuyorican teen reluctantly transforms into a Mickey Rican with the help of her best friend, her family, and a little bit of brujeria. --- In 1987, Desiree Sanchez is a Model Rican in the eyes of The Parents: She won first place in the eighth grade...
