Bentley Little: The Collection

"She can't hear you," Jobe said. He paused. "I'll come and get you, but you'll have to pay the price."

"I'll pay!" I cried.

"All right. Say, 'I'm a yellow belly, and I give up in womanly defeat.'"

I was desperate and, with only a moment's hesitation, I cast my pride away and shouted out the words. "I'm a yel­low belly, and I give up in womanly defeat!"

A minute later, I heard Jobe crashing through the weeds. He came through the wall of grass to my right. "Come on," he said, laughing. I followed him to the bam.

That night, as I undressed for my bath, I discovered that the skin on my stomach, instead of being its normal peach pink, had somehow turned a dark and rather bright yellow. I was baffled; I didn't know what had happened. Perhaps, I thought, I had accidentally touched some type of chemical dye. But the yellow color would not come off-even after a full ten minutes of hard scrubbing.

I did not tell my parents about this, however, and a few days later the color simply faded away.

I had no other experiences for almost ten years.

I was a history major in college. Midterms were over and, after nearly a full two weeks of nonstop studying, I decided to accompany some newfound friends and some recently ac­quired acquaintances to a club in Long Beach to hear the Chico Hamilton Quintet, the current musical sensation among the college crowd. I sat there in my shades, rep tie in place, smoking my skinny pipe and listening intently in the fashion of the day.

After the set, one of the others at our table, a student named Glen whom I barely knew, took a long, cool drag on his cigarette and looked up at the departing musicians. "Crap," he pronounced.

I could not believe what I'd just heard. "You're joking," I said.

He shook his head. "Highly overrated. The music was banal at best."

I was outraged! I could not believe we had heard the same group. "You know nothing about music," I said to him. "I refuse to discuss it with you."

Glen smiled a little. "And I suppose you're a music ex­pert?" he asked, addressing his cigarette.

"I'm a music major," I lied.

And I was a music major.

As simple as that.

My whole life shifted as I spoke those words. I remem­bered the myriad music courses I had taken and passed; I re­called names, faces, and even particular expressions of piano teachers I had studied under. I knew details about peo­ple I had not even known existed minutes before. I knew what the band had just played, and how and why.

I looked around at my companions. Doug, Don, and Justin, the three people at the table I knew best, were glar­ing at Glen. "That's right," they concurred. "He's a music major."

They were serious.

I did not know what was going on. I retained a full mem­ory of my "previous life," yet I knew that it was no longer true. Perhaps it never had been. And I knew that whereas a few minutes ago I could have recited the names of all the battles of the Revolutionary War and the outcome of each but could not have played the piano to save my life, now the opposite was true.

I slept fitfully that night. I woke up still a music major.

I decided to check my school transcripts to find out ex­actly what was going on. I went to the Office of Admissions and Records, got my files from the clerk, and took them over to a booth to study. I opened the folder and looked at the first page. The words typed there stunned me. I was officially en­rolled as a music major with an emphasis in piano composi­tion. I had never taken more than an introductory history course.

This can't be happening, I thought. But I knew it was, and something in the back of my mind made me push on. I looked up; the records clerk had turned her head for a mo­ment. "I am a history major," I said to the transcripts in front of me.

The music classes were gone.

And then I knew.

Of course, the first feeling was one of power. Incredible, uncontrollable, unlimited power. I could be anything. Any­one. And I could change at will.

But that disappeared almost immediately and was re­placed by the more penetrating feeling of fear. Could I con­trol this power? If so, how? If not, why not? Would it eventually fade? Or would it get stronger? Did this power or curse or miracle change only me, or did it change my im­mediate surroundings, or did it change the entire world in which I lived? Could I alter history? What exactly were the implications, ramifications, and all the other -cations of this? A million thoughts voiced themselves simultaneously in my mind.

A test, I thought. I need to test this out. I need to make sure this isn't some type of elaborate hoax or psychological mind game being played on me.'

First, I tried thinking of a command. I am a giraffe, I told myself.

Nothing happened.

Well, that proved something. To effect a change, the statement had to be said aloud. I was about to speak the phrase when I stopped myself. If I said, "I am a giraffe," and actually became one, it was quite possible that I would per­manently remain that way. A giraffe cannot speak. I would not be able to say, "I am a human being," and change my­self back.

The fear hit again; stronger, more potent. I began to sweat. I would have be very careful about this. I would have to think before I spoke. If I did not consider all the possibil­ities and potential side effects of each statement I made from now on, I could permanently alter my life. And not just for the better.

So instead of testing out my newfound proclivity then and there, I returned my transcripts to the clerk, mumbled a simple "Thank you," and hurriedly returned to my room. Once inside, I closed and locked the door and pulled all the | curtains. I left all the lights on. I wanted to see this.

I had a full-length mirror on the back of my closet door. 1 Being something of a clotheshorse, I had always considered I such a mirror a necessity and would never have been with- I out one. Now it really was a necessity. I opened the closet J door, took off all my clothes, and stood before the mirror. "I am fat," I said.

The change was not visible. That is to say, it did not occur in time. I was thin, then I was fat. I did not bloat up or sud­denly gain weight or anything of the sort. In fact, I did not physically change. I did not change at all. Rather, reality changed. One second, I weighed my typical 145 pounds. That was a fact. The next second, the facts changed. I weighed nearly 300 pounds. This too was a fact.

And it altered the world.

I retained a full memory of my "real life," but I also had a new and completely different life-my fat life. And the world corresponded to it. I knew that I had always had a bit of a weight problem, and that, after my girlfriend died from leukemia, eating had become a compulsion, a neurosis, a se­rious problem. I had tried several diets since then, but noth­ing worked. Eating was a need. And I loved pistachio ice cream.

I looked in the mirror at my triple chins and my over-flowing gut. I looked like nothing so much as a big ball of white dough. "I am thin," I said.

The world changed back. I was not fat. I had never had a girlfriend with leukemia. I hated pistachio ice cream.

This was a different reality.

That was as far as my "tests" or "experiments" went. I quit then and there. I did not understand this power; I did not know how to use it; I did not want to cope with it. And I was determined not to employ it for any reason. I vowed never to utter another sentence which contained the word.

But it is amazing how people adapt how human beings have this sort of innate ability to adjust themselves to change, no matter how radical. People living next to chemical dump sites soon stop noticing the stench; people living on the beach soon cease to hear the endless crashing of the waves.