Being Henry David - By Cal Armistead Page 0,45

time. All of which make option number one sound like the best choice: creating my own life, on my own terms, something like what Thoreau did.

“Did those books help?” Thomas asks me, setting one more book on top of the pile, which threatens to topple over.

“Basically they say I might remember a little at a time, remember everything at once, or never remember another thing for the rest of my life.”

“Hmm,” says Thomas, scratching his bearded chin. “Well, that leaves things pretty much open, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I say, leaning back with my feet straight out and my arms crossed over my chest, shutting down. “Sucks.”

“Listen, Hank, I have an idea. There’s this database for missing kids. We can bring it up on the computer and see if you’re on it.”

He signs me up for one of the library computers, and together we go online. And there it is, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. My heart jumps in my chest, just looking at those words. Missing. Exploited. Which am I?

“Any particular state you’d like to start with?” Thomas asks.

“How about New York,” I say. Makes sense. It’s where I woke up.

A few swipes on the keyboard, and he has opened up a page of missing kids from the state of New York. Over a hundred of them.

“Okay, Hank, go to it,” Thomas says. “I need to get back to work. Let me know if you find anything significant.”

“You’re brilliant,” I tell him.

“I know. Although, of course, if you don’t find yourself listed there, it’s just one more bit of evidence to prove my little theory.”

“That I’m the second coming of Thoreau,” I say dryly.

“Exactly.” He heads back toward his desk, then stops and says quickly, “If a man loses pace with his companions—”

“Perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away. Oh come on, Thomas. That was an easy one.”

Leaning over the computer screen with sweaty palms, I scan the pictures and read the listings. Date of birth. Age. Date the kid went missing. There are endangered runaways. Endangered missing. Family abduction. Non-family abduction. A John Doe with no picture is a possible homicide victim. This is a scary world to be visiting, even online, and somehow I’m a part of it. Creepy.

I’m confused when I see pictures of adults, with ages like forty-five or fifty-seven, until I realize they’ve been missing since they were kids. Somebody did age-progression computer imaging and some of the people look weirdly unnatural. I guess it’s not easy to take a picture of a four-year-old and try to figure out what he or she would look like at age fifty-seven. God, there are families who never give up, ever. Is my family one of those? Or were they glad when I disappeared? Nobody will miss you.

I check all the pictures of the missing children from New York, and I don’t find myself there. So I decide there’s nothing to do but start from the beginning with Alabama and go through every single state in the country, look at every single picture of every single missing kid, to see if I pop up.

Two hours later, my back is cramping up, I’ve only made it as far as Connecticut, and all the faces are starting to look the same. What a depressing task this is. All these kids with families who can’t find them. Or even worse, all the John Does and Jane Does who have been found, probably dead, and nobody even knows who they are, or were.

If I were to turn myself in to the police, is that what they’d call me? John Doe? A chill prickles down my spine.

That chill climbs up my neck and into the roots of my hair when I look at the last page of pictures from Connecticut. That’s when I see a face I know and almost fall right out of my chair. The kid’s hair is combed and cut shorter and the clothes are actually clean, but I still know him. I know the straight nose, the strong mouth and that stubborn tilt of his chin, like he’s daring someone to smash him in the jaw.

Jack.

John Alexander Zane, the listing says. Endangered runaway. His date of birth tells me he turned sixteen last week. He has been missing from Bridgeport, Connecticut, for about a month. So he and Nessa had only been on the streets for a month?

One picture beneath his