"Been waitin'," said the mangy hobo suddenly, startling Kyle. He smiled madly, still gobbling messily on his cow-sandwich, spraying large morsels in a wide arc; some sank into his beard, which also seemed hungry.
"Uh..." Kyle was uncertain how to respond. "Waiting for what?" I think I'll call him Crazy Dave. Tell mom he followed me home.
"Pop!" Crazy Dave yelled, exciting himself into giving a little hop onto his haunches. He giggled and chewed. "Pop!" he nodded. He blew air into his cheeks, puffing them like a hoarding chipmunk, and widened his arms at Kyle. "Aliens left you!" Crazy Dave arched his back, proud of his observation.
"So... where am I, then?" Crazy Dave may be completely bonkers, but waking up in a gutter, wilting under an unforgiving sun, wasn't exactly fodder for an academic journal. Is this realley January?
Dave didn't respond directly. He hunched low and fished his hand into an angular bag for two or three seconds before triumphantly withdrawing a newspaper covered with pigeon droppings. He made a twisting motion and spun the paper at Kyle. It slid along the concrete and stopped—a gift from a sadistic paperboy—at Kyle's feet.
No way I'm touchin' that! He squinted at the paper, trying to find something legible; avoid dipping his fingers into coagulated bird shit. Ch—a-o —une, he saw. Then, just under that, —ly &mdash, -003.
"Chicago Tribune. July ... something, 2003," he mumbled.
Crazy Dave must have seen Kyle's manner change, the stillness of shock that flushed through him. Dave was laughing now: "He he he!" Nodding and jumping on his haunches repeatedly. Crazy Dave wasn't accustomed to being right about things—why not celebrate?
Kyle bolted upright so quickly, his head swam and eyes started blacking out, filling with dim blotches and flashing stars. He staggered into a wall, clunking his head and right shoulder painfully into the newly tuckpointed brick wall.
He hardly felt it.
While Crazy Dave leapt and chortled, Kyle dodged around the dumpster, and walked almost sideways, dragging his shoulder along the wall for support, gunning for the street. When he finally broke the surface, erupting from the alley like a newborn, he couldn't help but look skyward.
What he saw struck him with fierce vertigo: gleaming black towers thrust into the sky to impossible heights, sharp, angular, and numerous; plundering the clouds; cleaving through the flesh of God. Kyle nearly toppled backward into the grimy side-street. None were the Empire State building, and there were so many!
Kyle's eyes immediately snapped shut, fused closed by sheer will. Dream. It's a dream. I'll wake up. It was one of those dreams: revolting lucidity that battered his sanity. Maybe he could wake himself, or just shift into another dream—any other dream.
Of course, when he chanced a peek, the dream hadn't cooperated. Stubborn. Desperate, Kyle imagined his room, striving to picture every toppled schoolbook, ruffled sheet, and discarded sock. Not once in his life had Kyle wished more fervently that he was in his slovenly room, listening to his mother complain at its disgraceful state.
Then the humming started. It was the drone of a weighty bass, massaging him from the inside out. His teeth should have chattered with it, so overwhelming was its intensity. But it was imagined. His fingers didn't vibrate, his jaws didn't chatter; he was perfectly still. Yet it felt like he was being shaken apart, molecule by molecule.
Somewhere in the distance, Crazy Dave's titters began to fade; ghosts in the night.
Night again. Slight chill leaking through his window. Grandfather clock downstairs ticking loudly. Something had hitched a ride: sandy grit between his toes; a musky scent of stale beer.
Home. He was home!
"Kyle," said a voice from a gloomy corner near his closet. "We need to talk."
Having experienced quite enough surprises for one night, Kyle's brain angrily shut down his body, indignant at the constant mental abuse. His eyes rolled back and he tumbled to the floor in a dead faint.
"Great," Sal said dryly. "Just what I needed."