The Darwin Variant

by Kenneth Johnson

  “Naw,” the woman said as she stretched her back. “Ain’t seen nothin’ like that.”

  Her husband scratched his stubbly chin. “How ’bout them weird birds?”

  “Birds?” I cocked my head. Was this a scent, Watson? “Weird how? What kind?”

  “Ain’t sure. Petey, our little ’un there, got hisself pecked on. They wuz nasty suckers.”

  I looked down at the grungy three-year-old. He’d been playing in the dirt but stopped to eye me very carefully. In addition to the grime and mucus on his face, there were some ugly scratches. I asked the parents’ permission, then knelt beside him, speaking gently, “Hi, Petey. Got some scratches, huh?” The child said nothing, but let me examine his face while he watched me with eyes that probed deeply. I glanced at the father. “Were the birds small, large . . . ?”

  “Didn’t rightly see. It’uz gettin’ dark. Mighta been crows.”

  I pondered this for a moment. “I’ve got some antiseptic in the car I can give you for Petey.” They nodded and I retrieved it, cleansed his scratches with some saline, showed them how to apply the med with cotton, and gave them my card. “I’d sure appreciate it if you’d call me at this free number if you see anything else unusual.” I also took their cell number.

  Throughout the whole encounter I registered how Petey was gazing at me. His eyes seemed strangely deep. Far more mature and intelligent than I’d ever seen from a three-year-old. They had a sort of knowledgeable glint that was unsettling.

  I was mulling that peculiarity as I walked back to my car. I was also fighting my aching inclination to sweep Petey away and give him a better chance at life. According to Lauren, this was my major weakness as a doctor: that I often developed an emotional involvement with my patients. Unlike Lauren, who could remain clinically detached from their pain and suffering.

  I couldn’t help it. I’d become a natural caretaker. By age twelve I’d realized my parents were unreliable because of their fondness for alcohol, so I had to mature early and take care of myself. My insurance salesman father and real estate agent mother gave me a childhood in suburban Maryland, free from want, but always lived just enough beyond their means to keep a constant high-wire tension in the house. And that was aggravated during my adolescence as their nightly consumption of cocktails increased.

  Certainly Lilly’s autism affected us all. I was essentially an only child. I couldn’t share a secret with Lilly because she’d often inadvertently blurt it out, simply not understanding the social context. Too often I got angry with her but grew to understand Lilly couldn’t help it, so I acclimated.

  Lilly’s special needs also made my parents’ lives harder, but primarily it was alcohol that led to their flailing bursts of wrath that usually targeted me. I learned that fighting back only prolonged the attacks, so I survived by countering their tirades with silent acquiescence. I’d let the slings and arrows fly by until they ran out of ammunition and stalked off, smoldering. I would take a deep breath and carry on unharmed. More or less.

  The role of caretaker for myself eventually expanded to my assuming full responsibility for Lilly, whom I truly loved. Then eventually, as an epidemiologist, I took on caretaking for the community at large. My former love, CDC colleague Chris Smith, said my childhood made me an ideal candidate for this job.

  As I’d done to survive my challenging childhood, I tried to efficiently manage the difficulties of my many adult responsibilities by forcing myself to keep a cool head and calm demeanor. But there were many times when I felt I’d explode if I didn’t vent my bottled-up turmoil. I’d hurriedly park in some lonely place and pound furiously on my steering wheel, sometimes sobbing while shouting my lungs out at fate, at Lilly’s disability, at my own failures. The last time was when Chris went away. I had suppressed the anguish, but finally blown. That time I pounded the steering wheel so hard I triggered the airbag to explode in my face.

  That made me laugh through my tears. And as the air slowly sagged out of the bag, my fury likewise abated. I wiped my eyes and grew wistful, deciding to face the situation with as much humor and grace as possible. Then I resubmerged myself in the clinical research work that I loved.

  As I walked away from the farmworkers, I took a last look back at Petey. I wasn’t surprised to see his eyes still locked on me. Those strange eyes. So cold for a child. I wondered if he might have some form of autism. I was almost to my car when I noticed two crows on a fence following me with their beady eyes. I paused, staring at them. Their gaze seemed as piercing and strange as Petey’s. I caught his parents’ attention, silently indicated the crows, questioningly. They shrugged, unsure.

  I recalled the bird droppings at the Nichols’ hog pen. It wasn’t uncommon for pathogens to be spread that way. Had these crows eaten something infected? I took heavy gloves from my trunk and a net on an aluminum pole that could telescope out. I moved slowly toward the large, oily black birds. I could’ve sworn they took on a crouching, hooded, menacing demeanor as they carefully gauged my approach. And just when I was within striking distance, they burst startlingly into the air, swooping right past my head, flapping and squawking angrily.

  I dodged them, then watched with frustration as they flew off, growing smaller and smaller against the clouding sky. It looked as though a storm was building.

  Shelly Navarro, 38, Ashton High School science teacher. . .

  I was already annoyed because the day started badly. Coming in from the school parking lot that morning, one of the admin assistants whispered to me that the board had gone with Prentiss for vice principal. What? I almost spit. That idiot? He didn’t have two brain cells to rub together. I felt my face contort on its own accord into what I once heard a student call my “cynical simpering smirk.” Well, so what if it was.

  Prentiss. Of course. He was oh-so-chummy with a couple of board members. Yes, he was pop-u-lar, whereas I heard that a couple of the admin types felt I had an “edge,” whatever the hell that means. Like maybe I work hard and I’m demanding and I don’t suffer fools? And that’s bad? I was particularly pissed off because it was the second time I’d been passed over. And for someone with a lot less experience at this stupid school. I really thought that my thirteen years in the classroom and being female and a Latina should have finally worked in my favor. But no. So much for their “diversity goals.” Screw ’em all. If they couldn’t appreciate my skill set, my managerial abilities, then they didn’t deserve me. Neither did most of my students.

  So by third period that day, I was definitely teaching by rote. Grumbling my way through the lesson for the three-hundredth time to thirty-one seniors, most of whom wanted to be anyplace but in biology class. Lisa McLane was definitely one of those. She sat halfway back, gazing out the window as usual, lazily contemplating the leaves beginning to change color on the Liquidambar styraciflua trees outside. She was a lightweight romantic ditz.

  I was in the midst of saying, “So at that point biology took a quantum leap forward after DNA was discovered . . .” when Lisa’s inattention started to particularly annoy me. She was only a middling student, but I knew that she was one of the girls who was pop-u-lar—certainly much more so than I had ever been. Try being a painfully chubby adolescent. So I sniped, “Are you with us, Lisa? You really can’t afford not—”

  “‘So biology took a quantum leap forward after DNA was discovered . . .’” Lisa parroted, continuing to gaze lazily out the window. I was about to go at her when she continued, “. . . in 1953, supposedly by Watson and Crick who won the Nobel Prize. But they didn’t reveal how Watson had unethically seen the pioneering X-ray photomicrograph taken by Rosalind Franklin, the crystallographer who was actually the very first to prove the correct structure of deoxyribonucleic acid.” She inhaled and went on, “DNA is a double helix of polynucleotides containing amino acids adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine in nitrogenous bases and deoxyribose. It’s a constituent of chromosomes in all cell nuclei where it serves to encode genetic data.”

  I wasn’t the on
ly one staring at her in amazement. All her classmates were, too.

  Lisa sighed, seemingly bored, as she continued at a mile a minute, “DNA can be attacked by retroviruses, which alter the sequence of specific amino chains, thereby changing the individual cell, and ultimately the entire host organism. Such viral infiltration can occur by numerous—”

  Charley Flinn. . .

  About that same time I was sitting in Tenzer’s English class, lookin’ around at some of the others, like I was seeing ’em for the first time. And like from a way different place. Like from a mountaintop way above ’em. Or from the fuckin’ stratosphere.

  Eric Tenzer was an okay guy. Midthirties, I guess. The girls thought he was sorta handsome. Liked his “wavy brown hair.”

  I never saw anybody wear suspenders before, but Tenzer wore different ones all the time and made ’em look kinda cool. They were like his trademark. He knew we joked about ’em, but he joked about himself, too. Even the pissiest kids liked him. And when we’d get into some serious literature stuff, like Conrad, that was real heavy duty, Tenzer talked about it just being “challenging,” but how it’d stretch our minds if we’d let it. Gotta admit I enjoyed his classes, even when it was a struggle. He could kinda draw us out and surprise us about what he called “our potential.” Told me once I had lotsa possibilities beyond just football. He had this easygoing way and always seemed to make us feel smart.

  But I didn’t need his help for that anymore. Not since what happened to Lisa and me the night before.

  I was thinking about that and sorta drifted off while Tenzer was sayin’, “So Conrad’s hero continued his trip up the Congo. Any thoughts?” He glanced around and musta spotted me daydreamin’. He said, encouraging kinda, “Charley? How ’bout it?”

  I turned kinda slow to look right at him. “Well,” I said, taking a casual breath, “some say it’s a metaphor for penetration of a woman’s vaginal canal, seeking the pure truth of the womb.”

  That sorta woke everybody up. The room went dead silent. I really enjoyed the hotshot feeling that gave me. Then I looked at Tenzer with a kinda steely smile. “Although I think the more appropriate orifice would be the anus, given the depths of depravity and filth that Kurtz sank to.” Another pause. The other kids were like completely dumbfounded. A couple of ’em laughed. “For the most part, I agree with Marcel Reich-Ravanki’s assessment that it’s a night journey into the savage unconscious darkness of Marlow’s own soul and—” I saw that my classmates were incredulous. Tenzer was blown away. And extremely pleased. I ate it up. I said politely, “Oh, I’m sorry . . . Shall I go on?”

  Tenzer got this quirky, confused smile and gestured affirmatively, so I continued, “Marlow sees that, removed from customary restraints, even the most disciplined, civilized person like Kurtz could give way to destructive impulses rising from the depths of their own primitive natures: unbridled vanity, greed, feeding an appetite for extreme power, and enjoying domination over others. The desire to play God.” Then I just sat calm and cool. Nobody moved. I knew they were all caught up in a major WTF.

  I realized how very, very much I was enjoying the stunned silence in the room.

  Katie McLane. . .

  Between classes I kept an eye out for Lisa. I was still trying to figure out what was up with her. I spotted her coming out of biology with Steph and Jenna hurrying to catch up. I sorta drifted in a little behind them. I always liked Steph the best. She was the softer of the three. She usually wore Goodwill treasures, always had to, ’cause her family seemed to have lots of bad breaks. She wore a small silver cross on a thin chain around her neck. Steph was always fighting to keep her weight down, but had a weakness for SNICKERS and was nibbling one. I heard her call out, “Lise! Wait up!”

  The other girl, Jenna, was like straight out of an H&M catalog. She was gushing, “God, I loved Navarro’s face! How’d you learn all that shit?!”

  “Simple.” Lisa sniffed, like she was way too cool to be talking to them.

  Steph laughed, “Shuh, right! Yesterday you were sure you were gonna fail.”

  Lisa barely glanced at her, but she had this private smile. “This is a brand-new day.”

  “Are we still gonna study together tonight?” Jenna asked, pressing, “I could sure use—”

  “I’d like to, Jenna,” Lisa said silky smooth, “but honestly I haven’t got time. Mind, Steph?” Lisa snagged the rest of Steph’s SNICKERS and hungrily gobbled it as she peeled off and left them behind, staring after her. But I kept trailing her.

  Farther down the corridor, I saw Lisa catch up with Charley at his locker. They were both staring at each other with these strange smiles, like they had a really powerful secret. It flashed on me, Oh my God, maybe she’s pregnant. My locker was almost across from them, so I eased up to it, listening to their whispers.

  Charley’s voice had this kinda edge I’d never heard from him, when he snatched at the candy bar. “Gimme somma that. I’m like fuckin’ starved.”

  Lisa’s breathing seemed fast. Her voice sounded amazed-concerned-excited all at once. “What the hell do y’think is going on with us?”

  Charley smirked, his expression was a little dark but excited, too. “Dunno, but it’s great!”

  “Kind of like a rush?” Lisa was nodding. “A high?”

  “Yeah.” Charley laughed. “Like my brain expanded.”

  “Yes! What was in those strawberries, Charley!? Wonder if it’ll last?”

  “Hope so. I’m kickin’ ass! C’mere!”

  He pulled her into a custodian closet nearby, closed the door, but not all the way. I’d sneaked some peeks a couple of times before, but never saw anything like that day. They were kissing hot and heavy, groping each other all over, couldn’t get enough.

  I stood there a second, then turned away so they wouldn’t see me. I was frowning, probably twisting one of my ringlets. Puzzling it.

  Strawberries?

  Charley Flinn. . .

  A few minutes later I was still feeling totally like king o’the world, struttin’ toward the boys’ gym. I caught sight of my least favorite senior classmate up ahead. My eyes kinda narrowed. Tim Green was the older brother of Darren, Katie’s pal. He had those all-American, dark-haired, surfer-dude looks. Tim was a couple inches taller than me, just over six feet. Coach Caruso always said Tim had the agility of a dancer and that made him an excellent quarterback. Gimme a break. But he was Caruso’s golden boy. Top guy on our JV and now the senior squad, Tim had beat me out again for QB and head of the team. I decided that morning it was time to change that.

  In his locker-room office I cornered Caruso. He was this older Italian former minor-pro dude who still pumped up and took high school ball seriously as the Super Bowl. He was in there fixing a damaged helmet. When I hit him up for QB, he just shook his head. “Sorry, but you’re not ready to start, Chuckie.”

  I zeroed in on him, quiet but intense. “Oh yes I am, Coach.”

  “No. You’re not.” Caruso set aside the helmet and looked up at me, friendly but firm. “Listen, Charley, you’re not a bad strategist, but you don’t got that drive to win like Tim does. He’s”—Caruso paused like tryin’ to think of the right word—“he’s the natural quarterback. He starts like usual. I’ll try to give you a shot down the road.” Caruso walked out. I watched him go, wanted to give him a shot. I was feeling cold, hard. But smart. Really smart. I chuckled, thinking, No second-rate minor-pro has-been is gonna stand in my way.

  Darren Green, 14. . .

  I loved when those Friday-night lights came on for our first game in our home field. They turn ’em on early in August when we first start school, even though the sun hasn’t set. Katie and I got there a little late, so I was hurrying into the locker room. Our guys were already suiting up. My brother, Tim, got Coach Caruso to let me be towel boy last year. I was really proud of how all the guys on the team—and everybody in our school—admired Tim. He was tall, strong, had dark hair like me. People always said they could tell we were brothe
rs. Tim was handsomer though and didn’t need glasses. He was also more athletic than I’d ever been. Girls thought he was cut and a hottie. Even Katie did. I hoped I could end up as cool as Tim was. And on the field he was amazing. Never got flustered. Always sussing out the defense, changing plays right at the lineup. He had this unruffled, calm way of calling the plays.

  When I came skidding in, Tim was standing with a foot up on one of the long, heavy wooden benches that ran between the lockers, untying his sneaker. He grinned, grabbed me, and gave me a little noogie on the head. “Hey, Dare. Glad you could make it.” I knew he was teasing. “Keep those towels coming, buddy.” He pulled off his jeans to hang in the locker and looked over at Charley, who was nearby. “Yo, Charley. Hope Caruso lets you into the game this time.” Tim smiled, then saw a dollar someone musta dropped by his locker, and reached down to pick it up.

  That’s when it happened.

  Charley accidentally bumped the heavy bench, and it smashed down onto the concrete floor and Tim’s right hand.

  Tim yelled out in pain. And Charley was right there to help, saying, “Aw, no! Shit!” Other players came to look. Tim was leaning against the lockers, cradling the injured hand in his left one. He looked like he was seeing stars from awful pain, trying hard to get on top of it. But it musta hurt bad. Charley was leaning in close. “It’s not broken, is it, Tim?” But Tim was in too much pain to talk. Charley shouted at me, “Darren! Get some ice. Hurry up!” As I hurried out, I heard Charley say to Tim, “Shit! I’m really, really sorry, man.”

  That evening Charley started as quarterback.

  Charley Flinn. . .

  After the game, Lisa and me went back to our own personal Garden of Eden and jumped each other big-time. It was like fiery. She was really suckin’ face hot, and in between was sayin’, “Jesus, you were a fantastic quarterback, Charley! God! Passing. Running. Mmm.” She was chewin’ my lips like she wanted to eat me alive. Kept pullin’ my hips hard against her again and again. “Oh yes, like that,” she sorta gasped. “And the way you called all those great plays. We woulda won for sure if—yes, ooo, like that!” She was callin’ her own plays, and I was all for it. Felt good. She was breathin’ hard, right in my face. “If the rest of the team was half as good as you—then you really woulda shined even more. Mmmm.”