Brain Child

by Andrew Neiderman

  Gregory saw that his son wasn’t moving, so he zipped his jacket up as high as it would go and lunged out of the car. Billy stood up as his father approached. The sight of his father running and crouching added to Billy’s terror and guilt. Gregory grabbed his son’s shoulders, squeezing hard, almost lifting him off his feet.

  “What the hell are you doing out here? What are you doing?”

  “I’m getting worms. It’s better in the rain.”

  “This isn’t a rain; it’s a flood. Does Lois know you’re out here?”

  “Yes. She said it was the best time to look for worms.”

  “Damn it,” Gregory said. He straightened up and wiped his face with his jacket sleeve. “You get back into that house and take off those clothes. Then I want you into a hot bath, understand?” Billy nodded quickly, clutching his can of worms as tightly as he could. “AH right, let’s run for it,” Gregory said.

  Billy shot forward, his little legs wobbly as he sidestepped puddles and slid over the mud. Gregory followed closely behind but lunged ahead at the front door so they could rush in. He stopped Billy in the alcove and helped him strip off his wet clothes. As he did so he looked for Lois, who obviously wasn’t around.

  “Lois! Lois!”

  The door of her room opened slowly and she emerged as if from a deep sleep. He stood waiting for her, his hands on his hips.

  “What’s going on?” she said. She had her copy of the Marigolds script cradled against her bosom.

  “That’s precisely what I would like to know. OK, Billy, get to the bathroom,” he said. He tapped him gently on the back. Billy started away, looking timidly at Lois. She followed him with her eyes until he was behind her and down the corridor. “Did you tell him to go out in the rain?”

  “He wanted worms,” she said. She looked as though she would suddenly yawn. “And when it rains like this, it’s the best time to gather worms. They come to the earth’s surface because the moisture—”

  “I’m not interested in worms, damn it. I’m interested in your brother catching cold.”

  ‘Oh, Daddy, it’s a warm rain, and besides, people don’t catch colds from rain. They catch them from viruses.”

  “I don’t want him out there in this kind of weather!” He was shocked by his own explosion. Her calm, rational voice unnerved him. Her condescending attitude made him feel silly for questioning her. He felt his authority challenged.

  Lois merely blinked. She stared at him, nonplussed. He pressed his hands against each other in an attempt to put a quick end to the acceleration of his heartbeat.

  “It’s not too smart to get so excited, Daddy. You know what it can do to your blood pressure.”

  “Don’t tell me about my blood pressure, young lady.”

  “I’m merely reminding. … Did something happen down at the store? Did you have a fight with Mommy?”

  “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”

  “I can see you’re just not in a good mood,” she said and started to turn around to walk away.

  “Don’t you walk away from me,” he said, his teeth clenched. A small pulsating beat had begun in both his temples at once. She stopped, but she didn’t turn completely around. “Turn around when I’m talking to you, damn it!”

  She turned slowly, her face glowing with anger now. “What is it you want?” she asked, punctuating each word with a controlled indignation.

  “First, when we leave you here to take care of Billy, we expect you will take care of him, not push him out into a storm.”

  “I didn’t push—”

  “And second, I want to know all about this business with Barbara Gilbert and Bernie Rosen,” he said quickly. Any other teenage girl would have been thrown off balance by this, would reveal her guilt, turn red, stammer, look for an escape, and perhaps cry to gain sympathy. But not Lois.

  Her expression barely changed. Someone with fingers at her pulse would record only the slightest increase in rate. There was a moment’s silence. From the way his daughter was looking at him now, Gregory felt as though he had been guilty of the indiscretion.

  “What exactly would you like to know?” she said calmly.

  “What exactly would I like to know? For your information, Mrs. Gilbert came to our store today. She was very angry, thinking of going to the school authorities. She kept her daughter home all day.”

  “Oh, really. What did she hope to accomplish by doing that? Barbara’s barely passing as it is.”

  “Look, Lois,” he said, trying to regain control of himself. He felt his anger and frustration surging. He was conscious of what this kind of emotional strain could do to him physically. As a man of science and medicine, he was able to visualize the adrenaline flowing into his bloodstream. He thought about the strain on his arteries, the pressure in his circulatory system. He imagined the quick formation of an aneurysm: he saw an artery blow up and explode, the blood rushing forward, the air getting into his system, killing him instantly. He would crumple like a suit of clothes sliding off a hanger and fold up on the floor to die at his daughter’s feet. He took a deep breath.

  “Look. Mrs. Gilbert accidentally picked up one of their telephones last night and listened in on a conversation you had with Barbara. She heard a lot about some kind of experiment with sex that you’ve been conducting. Do you deny this?”

  “Why should I deny it? I don’t like the connotation involved by calling it a sex experiment, though.”

  “Does this experiment involve … does it involve nudity?”

  “Yes, but that’s—”

  “I want it stopped/’ he said. He said it so quietly, with his eyes so glassy. She was impressed by that. “I don’t want to hear anything about it anymore.”

  “But, Daddy, if you will just consider the scientific value of what—”

  “I don’t want you doing anything like that in this house or anyone else’s house. I don’t even want to know the details. I can’t tell you how much this has upset your mother.”

  “I bet.”

  “And don’t you get smart about it either. I’m in business here and—”

  “So it boils down to the old profit motive, just like everything else.”

  “That profit motive is keeping you in fine style and will pay for your college education.”

  “I’m sure I’ll win a full scholarship, Daddy,” she said. She said it so matter-of-factly that he nearly smiled. There wasn’t a hint of arrogance in her declaration. It was simply a statement of obvious fact. She shook her head. “I would have thought that you, a man of science …”

  “Forget about this ‘man of science’ stuff, Lois. What you did was out of bounds because you’re involving people who don’t see these things as you do.”

  “I know that,” she said, seizing on his reasonable tone of voice, “and I don’t expect them to have the same vision. …”

  “I’m going back to the store,” he said, “and I’m going to tell your mother that we had a good discussion about this and the whole thing was simply an idea that got out of hand, that you are ending it right here and now. Do you understand me?”

  “I hear you, but I don’t understand you.”

  He stared at her for a moment. Then he shook his head. “I think we’re going to have to have a real long talk, you and I, a real long talk. And one of the topics is going to be Demerol.” He studied her face, but there wasn’t even a quickened eyelid.

  “What are you saying now, Daddy? What are you accusing me of now?”

  “There is some Demerol I can’t account for.”

  “Why don’t you ask Mommy about it?”

  “What?”

  “Why am I always suspect?”

  The cold, piercing look in his daughter’s eyes depressed him. It was as though she had become a total stranger, someone consumed by her own intellectual curiosity, a mutation born of science and technology: amoral, indifferent, stoic … inhuman. In the beginning it had been cute; then there were moments of pride; but now it was di
fferent. It was almost as if … he recalled the words of her science teacher in high school: “It’s more like fear. The other students act as though they’re afraid of her.” Was he growing afraid of his own daughter?

  “How could you accuse your mother of something like this?”

  “How could you accuse me?”

  “All right, Lois. I’ve got to get back, but we’ll talk again. We’ll talk about all this.” He turned quickly and opened the door. She stood watching him. “Make sure Billy takes his bath,” he said without looking back. He put his hood up and stepped out, ridiculously happy to leave his own house.

  Billy stood in his underwear and waited as Lois dipped her fingers into the water to test its temperature. He was quiet, but cautious and sensitive to his sister’s every move. He had heard his father’s angry departure: the last statement and the slamming of the front door. He knew that his father was angrier with Lois than he was with him. He expected that Lois would blame him, even though she had told him to go out and look for the worms, so he didn’t put up any fuss when she said he would have to take the hot bath now. “Not a half hour from now or an hour from now—now!”

  “All right,” she said, wiping her hand on the towel.

  “It’s not too hot?”

  “I said all right. Do you think I would put my hand in there if I were going to boil you? I should boil you,” she mumbled.

  His eyes began to tear. He looked suspiciously at the water and took a step backward.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Well, why did you stay out there so long? How can you be so stupid?” She tapped the side of the tub.

  “I don’t know why I have to take a bath now. I always take it before I go to sleep. I’m not going to sleep,” he said, widening his eyes and raising his shoulders.

  “Get your underwear off and get in here,” she commanded, pointing to the water.

  “I don’t wanna.”

  She reached out and pulled him roughly to her. The tears moved freely down his cheeks, but she ignored them and tugged his underwear down his legs and then pushed him back a step so he could walk out of them.

  “Get in.”

  He looked at the water.

  “It looks hot.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  He sat down on the edge of the tub and touched the water with his left foot, pulling it back instantly.

  “It is too hot.”

  “No, it isn’t. Get in there, damn it. Do you think I want to spend my whole life giving you a bath?” She pushed on his lower back and he moved reluctantly into the tub, wailing as his body sank into the water. Then she pressed on his shoulders to force him to sit deeper in the water. He shrieked, but she held him in it. The tears streamed down his cheeks now, then slowly subsided as his body adjusted to the water temperature.

  “There, now you see it isn’t so bad.”

  “It is too,” he said, but considerably more softly. He was afraid she might let in some more hot water.

  “Wash yourself, or do I have to do that too?”

  “I can do it.” He lifted the washrag and began to move it against the soap.

  Lois sat back on the closed toilet seat and stared at him for a few moments. His tiny, methodical motions up and down his arms and over his chest made her think of a cat and the way it worked its tongue over its paws and legs. How was it that a cat had the instinctive know-how to clean itself? She was sure that if children were left to themselves, they would never take a drop of water to their skins.

  “Lois?”

  “What is it?”

  “Why was Daddy yelling about Barbara Gilbert? I heard him.”

  “It’s something you wouldn’t understand. Just a lot of confusion.”

  “Is Mommy going to come home mad, too?”

  “Who knows? I imagine there’ll be some hysterics,” she added, more to herself than to him.

  “What’s hysterics?”

  “Exaggerated emotional behavior. I’m sure it’ll take its usual course with her: she’ll develop headaches and a stomachache. She might even bring on a fever.”

  “From hyster … hyster …”

  “Hysterics. Of course,” Lois said, assuming her usual pedantic posture. “Emotional upset often causes physical difficulty in the body. The technical term is psychosomatic. I recently read that psychosomatic illness is responsible for over half of all physical illness,” she added. Billy had already let his attention drift away, but the next sentence brought him back. “I’m convinced that’s what caused Daddy’s stroke.”

  “What’s Daddy’s stroke?”

  “You don’t remember when he was in the hospital, do you?” she asked, for the moment intrigued with the depth of an infant’s memory.

  “Nope.”

  “I think Mommy told you he went to visit Uncle George anyway. One of her protective white lies,” Lois added with a smirk. “Keep scrubbing.”

  “Why did she lie?”

  “Because Mother is unable to face reality herself, much less force others to face it. Mother suffers from a variety of neuroses.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Just wash up and get out, will you? I have things to do.”

  “Can I help?”

  “‘Can I help?’” she mimicked. “‘Can I help?’ I told you, when I need your help for anything, I’ll ask you. You’re not old enough yet to comprehend my projects.”

  She got up and left the bathroom. For a few moments she just stood outside the door, listening to her brother splash away in the tub. She hadn’t counted on her father’s sneaking up like that and confronting her with Mrs. Gilbert’s story, so she knew she didn’t perform the best she could. Now she would have to abandon the project. If there was anything she hated vehemently, it was leaving a project uncompleted.

  Billy had settled himself comfortably in his tub now and she could hear him start up his ridiculous game of naval warfare, using the soap as a ship and bombing it with the washrag. His mouth puffed and exploded with the imagined sounds of war. Before she dismissed it altogether, however, she considered how quickly young children, especially young boys, acted out aggressive tendencies. Were we inherently violent? Was it part of our nature to destroy? Perhaps war, violence, was inevitable, even welcomed and enjoyed.

  She considered her brother in more detail, recalling how he liked to go outside and “bomb” ants for hours on end. He’d find a place on the lawn where they were abundant and drop rocks on them, accompanying his attacks with the appropriate sound effects. Never once did he think about the fact that he was killing and destroying life wantonly. Lois didn’t moralize about that, and she would never lecture him concerning the evil nature of his play. She wasn’t thinking of it from a moral point of view. What amazed her now, when she gave it some thought, was the fact that her brother just did it quite thoughtlessly.

  She concluded, therefore, that there was nothing innate that would lead man to an essential respect for life or the essence of life. Once it was taught or acquired, however, it could be radically changed. Witness what had happened during the Second World War and how people treated one another, especially in the concentration camps, she thought.

  She looked back toward her brother. Wouldn’t it be interesting to change one of his attitudes or imprint a new one? Of course, it would be so much easier if he were only a year or a year and a half old. She remembered the way babies were made to hate nature in the novel Brave New World. Beautiful flowers were placed just across the room from them and they were allowed to crawl toward them. But when they touched them, they were given vicious electrical shocks. After a while they wouldn’t go near any flowers.

  Surely there was something like that she could do with her brother. She would give it some thought, but whatever it was, she had to be extra careful about it so her parents never became aware of what was happening. Of course, that wouldn’t be too difficult once the summer started and she was left in charge of Billy for so many more hours of
the day. Summer was still some months away, but she could plan and prepare for it.

  The idea was really starting to excite her. There were great possibilities. The most important thing and the great advantage was that Billy would exist in the controlled environment she created. He couldn’t escape from it because it was his home. Why hadn’t she thought of this before?

  Actually, she owed these new thoughts and new ideas to her father, even to Billy himself. An intelligent person, she thought, always found a way to turn events to his advantage. She was proud of herself and bouyed by the potentials. It had the effect of changing her entire demeanor when she reentered the bathroom.

  “Aren’t you finished?” Her voice was soft, melodic. It made Billy think of his mother. “Here you told me that water was too hot, and now you won’t get out of it.”

  “It was. At first.”

  “Come on, I’ll help you dry off,” she said and took a towel off the rack. He stepped out of the tub and she wrapped him quickly, rubbing him over the back and shoulders vigorously but affectionately, with a motherly concern. “That feels good, huh?”

  “Yeps.”

  “Yep, not yeps. In fact, yes, not yep. I wish I had someone to do this for me.”

  “I’ll do it for you anytime.”

  She actually laughed. He turned around to be sure she was laughing honestly and not strangely as she often did.

  “I’m getting hungry,” he said.

  “Good, because we’re having a great supper. And no nibbling before,” she warned, taking on a serious parental look. He didn’t mind, because she was smiling, and as she finished wiping his body she was humming.

  Gregory Wilson was intensely disturbed by the way his daughter had reacted to the confrontation, but he wasn’t eager to discuss it with Dorothy. However, she knew that it hadn’t gone well. She could tell from the way he withdrew to the back of the store and busied himself with organizing supplies.

  “So? I don’t understand,” she said the moment the store was empty again. “You told her and she admitted it?”

  “Just what I said. It’s all over with. Just teenage stupidity, typical young person’s curiosity. You know, like ‘Let’s play doctor.’ ”