Hundreds. It's gotta be in the hundreds. I mean, look at me, I'm in my fifties, I've been doing it for more than forty years, never anyplace for more than a week at a time. Well, maybe I spent a month or two in a really good situation, and I didn't really start seriously crawling people until I was out of high school. Too hard to do it before then. But let's say thirty years, twenty changes a year, that's what, six hundred situation? Like I say, it's in the hundreds.
Yeah, that's right. "Crawling." That's my word for it, as in "I crawl into people and crawl out of them." Or like a pub crawl. It's a change of situation. I dunno when I started calling it that. Probably after being in some rugby player or football hooligan doing the aforementioned pub crawl.
No, I never used that word with friends. I ain't got any. No friends of my own, I mean. I've had plenty of friends while I was crawling guys, but you know, shoot, you don't say anything to them about what you're doing.
Although once ... Eh, let it drift. Maybe I'll tell you about that later. After we've, uh, gotten to trust each other a little more.
Oh, please. Don't ask stupid questions. No one ever "just knows" that they can do something. You gotta find out the first time you do it. Yeah, I can tell you about my first crawl.
I was about seven years old, I guess. Second year in public school. Shitty school. I guess I'd always been kind of sensitive. I bruised easy. If I didn't get picked to play on a team, or I got a wrong answer in the classroom, it hurt. No one seemed interested in me, either. They all had their friends, and I was just the extra kid or something. No one paid any attention to me.
Except for one kid. Billy Resch was his name, and I was his project. He knew I was sensitive--oh, hell, I guess everyone knew it, but he took a special interest in me. Oh, such delight he took in tormenting me. He wasn't even very clever about it. I realized that, eventually. He just knew he only had to look at me, to let his contempt ooze out, and he could upset me. Like I said, I bruised easily. He would tell me that the other kids hated me, and I'd believe him. Isn't that sick? I don't mean that he was sick for saying so. I mean, I was sick for believing it.
No, he didn't physically abuse me. He was about my size, we were probably about the same strength. He wasn't a fighter and I wasn't either. But one day we did get in a fist fight, and that's how I found out I could crawl people.
I don't remember what set it off. Something stupid, I'm sure. I was probably complaining about the cafeteria food, because he was making fun of the food I liked. You wanna know how pathetic his teasing was? One time--and maybe it was even this one time--he made fun of me for liking "boiled potatoes." That's what he said. His lip curled and his eyes rolled back and he said, "You like boiled potatoes" as though that was the silliest thing in the world. I don't even think I said anything about liking potatoes, but that's all he had to do, was sneer out a line, something as silly as that, and I would just go to pieces.
So, I dunno what he said on that particular day, but it was something. We were alone, out behind the garbage dumpsters. I guess he'd followed me out there. Anyway, he said something in that sneering way of his. And this time, I got angry, seriously angry, and I jumped him. I got him under me, and we were rolling around. He tried fighting, but then he just gave up and lay there, with me sitting on his stomach. He grinned up at me, and he said "You like touching me."
And then I did flip out. I wanted to shove those words back down inside him, I wanted to push them down into his chest and smother them there. So I clamped my hands over his mouth and I pressed down hard. I was crying, probably, and I know I could hardly think straight. I just kept pushing and pushing and squeezing and pushing. And I was feeling lightheaded, too, and dizzy, but I just kept hanging onto that thought, to push the words inside him with my own hands. And I was pushing so hard I lost all feeling in my own hands and arms and shoulders, and I remember feeling myself falling. It seemed to go on forever, and for only a split second, at the same time.
And then, suddenly, I was looking up at the sky. I was on my back and I was feeling bruised, like someone had been beating me up. I sat up, and it felt kind of funny when I did, but then I saw it was because I was wearing long pants. I should have been wearing short pants. And I looked down at those pants and at my shoes and at my shirt, and I realized they weren't mine.
Except suddenly they were. It was like being touched on the back of the head. I felt Billy Resch touch me on the back of my head, and I spun around, but he wasn't there. He was in the back of my skull. I felt him there, I felt all of his thoughts and memories, right there. They were very tender, they felt new, but I knew whose they were. I knew who I was. I didn't have to look in a mirror. I knew I was Billy Resch.
Still, it felt very funny as I walked back across the playground to the school building. My feet didn't feel like they were touching the ground, and my head seemed to be revolving. I wondered if I'd see me--the real me--somewhere off by a wall, crying, but of course I didn't. I went inside and went to the boys' bathroom and looked in the mirror, and there, just as I'd expected, was Billy Resch staring back at me from the mirror. I stared and he stared, and I guess both of us--me and my reflection--looked really wooden.
And then I let my face relax, and it was the most wonderful thing. Because then I really did look just like Billy Resch. I had that horrible glint in my eye, and the side of my mouth went up like this. And I made a little smirk and I said something in his soft, snake-like voice, something he would say to me. "You like boiled potatoes," probably.
And oh my God what a rush it gave me. I instantly thought of something nasty I could say to this one girl in the class that neither Billy or I liked, so I went sauntering out to find her, and I said it to her, and she chased me and hit me. And then I went off to hang around with some of the other boys. It turned out that they didn't like Billy all that much either, and Billy knew it, but he didn't let it bother him. He'd just jeer and horse around with them, so that's what I did. They called me names and I called them names back, and when they didn't pick me to play a ball game with them I went over to the swing set and said some more nasty things to some of the girls. I felt so pleased with myself. It was the kind of thing that made Billy feel good, and because I was being Billy, it made me feel good too.
Oh yeah, of course the teacher noticed I was missing. Right after recess. She took roll and asked where I was, and I used Billy Resch to say that I'd run home crying to my mommy. I guess they did some kind of search. I didn't care. I was having too much fun. After school I took Billy's bus home, where I messed up his room and got in all kinds of trouble with his mom. Billy had a nasty mind, and I let all his nastiness out of him, did all the things that he himself didn't dare to do.
Why are you asking that? You've read the statements, you know the people I crawl can remember everything. Of course he knew what was happening. Well, I didn't worry about it at the time. I told you, I was only seven, and it was all brand new to me.
No, it never occurred to me. Well ... I say that, but it's been a long time. I don't remember what occurred to me or not. I do know I was probably about twelve or thirteen before I sat down and told myself that no one else could crawl other people, that it was probably my own unique gift. I did get scared that someone would figure out what I'd done, that I was inside Billy Resch, but that's-- That's just like every kid whose afraid he'll be found out for doing something wrong.
Of course I knew it was wrong. But he deserved it, and I was having fun giving him what he deserved.
The next day, after lunch. I snuck away into a corner of the playground near some big trees where I wouldn't be seen. I didn't know if I could do it, but I figured that if I could put myself into someone I could pull myself out. So I did. It was ... Well, it was an out of body experience, I guess you could say. I feel weak and light-headed when I come out of someone, because I'm shaking off all their memories and personalities and stuff. I don't know what it "feels" like to come out of someone, any more than I know what it feels like to go inside them. It's kind of like vomiting. It happens all at once, and you feel kind of displaced when it happens. Anyway, I was back on the ground pretty quick without a lot of worry. Billy was laying beside me. I was staring at him when he opened his eyes. Oh, they were so big when he clapped them on me. I was shaking all over, but I managed to say "If you ever, ever--" I didn't even have to what he ever might do. I just said "If you ever, then I'll do it to you again." And he knew just what I meant. That I'd go back inside him.
He ran off. I never talked to him again.
Really? I didn't know that. Do you have any idea how long-- No, I wouldn't know that. I do know he quit the school early, but he was probably still attending for ... at least a few weeks after I crawled him? He moved his desk to the other side of the room, I remember that. And he totally avoided me.
I guess by the fact that you have a folder there with his name on it, that you know all about Billy Resch and what I did to him. Is that his side of the story in there? I'd love to read what he had to say about it.
Suit yourself. I guess it doesn't matter much to me. It looks like the hour is almost up. Same time tomorrow?
