by Melody Clark
“In our new theory, we’re reading through a conductor and translation apparatus, based on somatic cells, from living neurons, in one instance,” Edward replied. “That’s very different from trying to access information from non-neuron cells, especially dead ones.”
“But deposited information in matter is information in matter.”
“Abstractly. With SAGE there’s some direct connection we’re mimicking, in the nervous system to neurons link. There’s no analog with SAGE and an inanimate object.”
“It would still be so cool to try though,” Wilse said. “All done taking pictures with my lame old dodgy camera. Of course, I’m hoping for a new and better camera for my 20th birthday in the near future.”
“Wilsey,” Andrew said, looking down at the ground, “I think you may have dropped a hint over here.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve already told James, Uncle Thomas and Grandfather. I’ll bring it up thirty or forty more times before then, too. And I’m happy to provide printed and email literature about my cameras of choice.”
“I felt certain you would,” Andrew said. “Very well, when we get back to the house, send it over. Eddie and I will conspire with the others.”
“What I really want, of course, is a car, but Uncle says it’s far too expensive, so I’ll be pleased with the camera.”
“That’s good of you,” Andrew said, reaching back to yank down the bill of his Manchester United cap.
“I’ll email the house shots over to you, Eddie. I have a hot date,” Wilse said, jogging off for the old house entry door.
“Bring something with you, if you know what I mean!” Andrew called after him before turning back toward Edward.
Edward was, once again, considering the old house they had just departed.
Andrew nudged his shoulder. “You look far away.”
“Me?” Edward asked. “I was just thinking about what we were discussing.”
Andrew shrugged a little. “Crazy, but interesting.”
“Maybe.”
“Come along, it’s getting cold and creepy and dark out here in the middle ages,” Andrew said, tapping Edward’s shoulder. “Let us be thankful for 21st century heating and illumination.”
The dark adorned itself with a variety of evening colors in the depths of Croftdon House. Bits of borrowed light from his Ebook reader helped him see the shades, as he tried and yet didn’t try to read a book on virtual causation triggers. Edward still felt like a visiting plebeian in a noble house, as he stared out across the room that was assigned to him. On the moonlight shining on the wall, he could see the murky jagged patterns he knew to be the knobby arms of aged trees that encircled the old house. Those made him feel even smaller.
A gentle knock rattled his door.
“Come in,” Edward replied.
The door opened slowly. “Edward Thomas,” Thomas said, as he entered the door, shaking an envelope in Eddie’s direction. “We must have words.”
“Uh-oh, first and middle name. I must be in trouble.”
“Yes, and just so you know, you are not too old for me to confine you to your room.” He brandished the envelope again. “On top of the household budget paperwork, I found this, with your handwriting on it. May I ask what this is?”
“My little contribution to the household budget.”
“That’s what I thought. It isn’t little and it isn’t needed. I don’t want or need your money, son,” Thomas said, dropping it on Edward’s side table. “I won’t accept another pittance from you. And that is as it shall be, young man.”
“Look, I know what this house costs to run. It’s important to me that I contribute.”
“And it’s important to me that I not accept it from you. You don’t need to contribute. Your being here is gift enough,” Thomas said.
“It’s just that I don’t want to be a financial burden.”
“You aren’t.”
“Then I will buy something for the house.”
“No, you will not. Not in any form.”
“Look, I feel enough like a gatecrasher –”
“That’s the whole point I’m attempting to make. You aren’t one. You are home. Understood?”
Eddie laughed a little in the darkness. “Just so you know, you’re impossible.”
“Yes, I am. As your brother, Tad, would say, now you know where you got it from. Which brings me to my other reason for interrupting your evening. Wednesday is Wilse’s birthday party. I’ve invited your aunts, Hope and Charity, your mother’s sisters, not surprisingly, as well as some cousins. They are all anxious to meet you, your aunts especially. You’re barely out of rehab and there are sure to be questions. Is that going to be awkward for you?”
“I’ll deal with it,” Eddie said.
“There’s also the matter of your aunt’s husband. He’s an idiot. An imbecile. A moron. A cretin. I cannot abide even five minutes in the same room with him.”
“Gosh, I get the feeling you don’t like him,” Eddie said, chuckling softly.
“He is madness stuffed into an old suit spun of unrelenting stupidity,” Thomas said. “Unfortunately, he’s also married to your aunt, so we must invite him. He is bound to say something obnoxious. He always does.”
Edward shrugged. “I think I can handle it.”
“Good man.” Thomas rose up from the chair and made it all the way to the door before turning to say, “And as you would say, not to sound like your father, but to sound like your father, don’t stay up too late. Goodnight, son.”
“Goodnight, Dad.”
“I can never hear that enough,” Thomas said, finally closing the door behind him.
Chapter Two
Morning coffee was more than a ritual now. Since weaning himself off his morning stabilizers of pills, pills, energy drinks and pills, the caffeine had become salvation in a cup. He inhaled the steam deeply into his lungs. The quality of coffee was not strained – it dropped like the gentle rain, so long as the rain flowed hot, caffeinated and strong. He was certain the cafetière of England had been shocked by the sheer strength of his caffeine addiction.
“Eddie’s eyes are opening,” Tad said, walking past, “just a warning to the general populace.”
“Shut up, Toad,” Andrew said, as he walked around him to sit down near Eddie at the library table.
Edward sipped from his cup again, barely reacting to the rolling, deeply-pitched doorbell booming through the house like a music box version of a Gregorian chant.
“I shall get that. It will be for me anyway. It’s always for me,” Tad said, sailing out of the library and toward the front of the house.
After a moment and several more slow and earnest sips from his cup of consciousness, Edward felt a hand on his shoulder. “Fancy that, it was for you.” Tad plopped a manila envelope beside his laptop. “And I had to sign for it.”
“I didn’t know you could write your name by yourself now,” Eddie replied, reaching for the envelope. “Major props.”
“Shut up,” Tad said, adding with a vague unease, “It looks – legal.”
Edward loosened the seal. He slipped out the papers within and scanned over them. Was a time, the words on those pages would have formed a dagger thrusting straight into his beating heart. Now the words were dull and light and barely made for a poniard of reply. It wasn’t that the words hadn’t hurt him – they had. He had just been steeled up and ready for the assault.
He shut his eyes to take in the information and opened them again, plunking the paperwork aside.
“What is it?” Andrew asked gently.
“It’s from Wendell,” he said softly, with an empty kind of resonance. “He’s claiming intellectual copyright violation or something. Basically, he’s suing me to stop using his surname professionally. I was expecting something like this.”
“Doesn’t he realize you just left hospital?” Tad asked sharply.
“
Probably,” Eddie replied.
Andrew stepped up to refill Eddie’s coffee. “What will you do?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.” Edward paused in thought. “I could stand my ground and insist on keeping the name, but to be honest, it doesn’t mean enough to me to do that anymore. It’s only a name. I guess I’ll just change it.”
“To what?” Andrew asked.
Eddie’s cell phone rang out coolly and cleanly. He winced a little at the sudden sound. After a gulp of coffee for sustenance, Edward reached for the phone in his pocket. He looked at the caller ID. K.C. Sharpe.
“It’s my old assistant, Ken,” he said to the others. “Pardon me a moment.”
Edward got out of his chair and moved into the hallway, as he sensed a coming need for confidentiality. He answered the phone saying, “Don’t tell me, you got served, too.”
“Yeah,” Ken said from his end of the line, “he’s doing just what you said he would – striking out at everyone.”
Edward groaned softly, nodding to himself. “And I’m afraid his enemy list will be growing exponentially. I’m sorry you were added to it.”
“There’s nothing for you to apologize for. I was a grown man who signed on with my eyes open. You were an infant raised by wolves. I don’t even know what he’s suing me for since I don’t read legalese. I’ve got an afternoon appointment with my attorney to find out the specifics. How about you?”
“He’s demanding I drop his name,” Eddie said. “I’m sure this is just the first salvo on a long, oncoming war.”
“That son of a bitch.”
Edward exhaled, rubbing at his neck. “I agree. Which reminds me, how is the bastard?”
“Batshit crazier by the day, as you predicted. When the universe is your enemy, the earth is your battlefield. Speaking of which, the private detective you hired to draw up the bad deeds report on Wendell is dropping me off his preliminary report today. He says it’s 147 pages.”
“It’s what?” Eddie snapped.
“Yeah, I know. And it’s the preliminary report. Can you imagine what the final will be?”
Eddie rubbed at his eyes at the very thought. “I don’t want to.”
“Did you want me to scan it in and email it to you when it comes in?”
“Yeah, I guess. I asked for it. I might as well read it.” Eddie tried to calm himself for a moment, seeking out anything else to ask. “You having any luck in the job search?”
“I’m doing okay with consulting. How’s the rehab process going?”
“It’s fine,” Eddie said. “It’s mostly over, I guess.”
“It never is over,” Ken said, pausing for a moment. “Okay, so here comes the question, you changing your name to Croftdon?”
Eddie glanced backward into the library, at the others who appeared to be trying to ignore the conversation. He still lowered his voice a notch. “To do something like that would be a massive imposition, to say nothing of an encroachment on the rest of the family. It would be presumptuous as hell.”
“You can’t really think that. Wait, who am I talking to? Of course you think that. Run that sentence past Thomas and see how he reacts.”
“Of course he’d say otherwise. He’s a nice man, but it’s still presumptuous,” Eddie replied, “I don’t know, I’ll have to think about what to do. Until then, thanks for everything. And take care of yourself.”
“You, too, amigo,” Ken said.
Edward stowed his phone and turned toward his laptop. He had been about to read once more through the paperwork when he sensed someone standing right beside him, watching him. Relief flooded through him when he saw that it was Tad and not their father – the irony of that fact was not lost on Edward.
Tad hovered over his shoulder. “What’s presumptuous?”
“Asking you to not eavesdrop,” Edward replied.
“Sorry, really, it’s just that – ” Tad said, muttering disconsolately to himself for a second. “Oh, bugger all, I need to ask a favor of you.”
“Not chess again,” Edward said softly.
“No, not chess, although you do owe me your proper public humiliation. Instead, I would like you to go to tea with me.”
“Tea? May I ask why?”
“We will be meeting my son, Stewart. Obviously, I would like him to meet his Uncle Eddie. You haven’t had a chance yet and he happens to have this week off at school. I hope to teach him basic polite social customs, which he didn’t have a chance at where he grew up. I also shall require an interpreter.”
“An interpreter?”
“He has spent the last eight years of his life in Los Angeles. Whenever we converse, he might as well be speaking in tongues.”
Sutterfield’s sat on the corner, carved out of very old shops. Even before they were introduced, Edward picked out Stewart, slumped in a booth, his baseball cap slanted down. He stared sullenly out at the world as if he were an alien on a distant planet. Edward knew that feeling too well.
The boy was a brown-haired replica of Tad, with a spray of freckles over his nose. He gave them an adolescent’s standard glare of vague distaste. “Hi.”
“Stewart,” Tad said, “this is my brother, Edward. Edward, this is my son, Stewart. Stewart, say something reasonably courteous to your Uncle Eddie.”
“S’up?” the boy asked, nodding his head slightly.
“Translation?” Tad asked.
“What is up, what is happening, how are you, that sort of thing,” Edward said.
“Whoa!” Stewart said, sitting bolt upright from his slouch. He looked on in amazement. “Say something again!”
Eddie laughed. “Howdy, buckaroo. What’s happening? How’s it going? My country tis of thee. Is that enough? Your dad tells me you have a communication problem,” he said, grinning as he slid into the opposite end of the booth.
Young Stewart grasped his head with both hands. “No way! No way! You’re American!”
Edward nodded. “Way. Born here, grew up in Boston, Massachusetts.” He grinned across at Tad. “Your son, the septic, huh?”
“Watch your tongue,” Tad said. “He was born and raised here until he was three.”
“Your son, the septic, in other words,” Eddie said, grinning more widely. “It’s very nice to meet you, Stewart. What part of the southland are you from?”
“I already told you, he lived in California,” Tad said.
Edward smirked over at his brother. “Tad, in California, east is east and west is San Francisco. The southland is southern California.”
“Oh,” Tad said, “silly me.”
“I’m from West LA, all the way, boo!” Stewart said, leaning forward with what actually passed for a smile on his face. “This is so cool! You ever been to Los Angeles?”
“I graduated from UCLA.”
“No shit!” he said, bouncing with excitement. “Clippers or Lakers?”
“Please! Lakers, of course.”
Stewart leaned his head back, still a little suspicious. “Kings or Ducks?”
“Ducks?” Edward coughed back, incredulous. “Do I look like a Mickey Mouse man to you?”
Stewart presented his knuckles for a fist bump. “Playuh!”
Edward bumped his fist against the boy’s. “You know it.”
“Well, I believe I’ll leave you two to get acquainted while I place our order. At least the staff and I speak the same language,” Tad said, walking away.
Stewart leaned toward Eddie. “Do these limeys say the weirdest shit or what?”
Edward formed a T with his hands for a timeout. “Okay, first of all, watch your language, and not to sound like your uncle, but to sound like your uncle, let’s not use rude names for people either.”
“I’m rude? They’re super rude, boo! They say shit we would never say aloud!”
“I hate to tell you this, Stewart, but they say the same thing about Americans. To
them, we’re rude, to us, they’re rude. It’s all in your perspective.”
“They tell you your business all the time. Right out on the street. They don’t even know you.”
Edward shrugged. “It’s a matter of the way you look at things. People are different everywhere.”
“And they got the word toilet all over the place!” Stewart said. “Just printed on walls. You buy a box of cough drops and it says place in mouth and suck. I mean, you don’t say suck on packaging, dude. You just don’t say it. And they got ads on their soda cans! It’s not normal.”
Edward could no longer sustain the serious uncle façade. He gave way to a laugh. “Like I said, normal is what you’re used to. Can you imagine how they react when they come stateside?”