“Yes. You understand it is still experimental. We have had excellent responses with chimpanzees, and a few preliminary studies with other children that look good. But, we cannot promise results.”
“It won’t hurt him, will it?”
“No.” He seemed startled. “No, of course not. That much we can promise.”
“Good. I won’t let him be hurt.”
He blinked. “None of us want to hurt him, Mrs. Seakirt. We will simply drill a hole through the skull—”
Drill a hole in my child’s head.
“—to a certain area of the hypothalamus that Dan has identified. I am sure that he has already explained that all sensory inputs, indeed all neural impulses—”
“Are identical. Yes, he did. And the brain decides whether you are holding sandpaper or smelling roses based on the locations of the sensors and the destination area of the brain.”
Zachariah seemed pleased. “Exactly. In some cases, the signals go to the wrong areas of the brain, so that the individual smells ‘purple’ or hears ‘sour.’ Very complex problem. Very complex. That, of course, is not your son’s condition. Here we have a much simpler case—or we believe we have a much simpler case—in which the associative neurons of the hypothalamus are retarded. Am I, er, ‘snowing’ you, Mrs. Seakirt?”
“No. Dr. Silverman already explained about affectors and effectors—the input and output neurons—and the associative neurons that connect them.” I wonder what they are doing to Ethan right now? While I sit and chat nonsense with this smiling man with the funny name.
She rubbed her hands forward and backward along the chair arms. Ethan would be frantic by now at his separation from her. Zachariah’s words dipped into and out of her consciousness like a stone skipping on the water. “—an electronic device of my own devising—” What if this procedure of theirs fails? “—plug-in skull module—” It is experimental, after all. “—portable computer with neural net logics—” I work with computers; I know how they can bomb off.
“So in essence, Mrs. Seakirt, the sensory inputs will be routed through the computer directly into the receptor areas of the brain. You may think of it simply as a new sort of bypass surgery. Do you have any questions?”
What if it doesn’t work?
***
Fresh, bright laundry smell.
Sharp odors.
Smell of
medicine.
Sweet momma-smell.
Gummy sour taste in mouth.
Sticky sweet.
Soft, cool sheets covering gently.
Head hurts [ow!].
Room spin slowly, slowly.
Turn head. Still hurts!
White sheets cover body. Bed rails up like crib.
White dress nurse walks by with tray. Smiles.
Mommy! sitting by bed.
Tiredsadlook.
Soft rustle sounds.
“Ow!”
Rattle of glasses on tray. “Why hello, Ethan, awake already?”
“Good morning, baby.”
She tried not to look at the cable snaking from her son’s head; but it was impossible not to look. It was a flat cable, the ribbon kind, and it was coupled to a 50-pin intelligent port implanted in Ethan’s skull. Tom Zachariah’s “little device.” The other end of the cable was a minicomputer. State of the Art, Zachariah had assured her. The cutting edge. And, for the life of her, she could not decide if her son was hooked up to a computer or if a computer was hooked up to her son.
He opened his eyes suddenly and jerked his head back and forth. A nurse walked by with a clattering tray and Ethan followed her movement. “Why hello, Ethan,” the nurse said, “awake already?” She did not wait for an answer but continued on her mission. Ethan turned again and looked Alma in the eyes. Bright, aware, “real-time” eyes. “Mama,” he croaked with a throat sore from the anaesthesia tube.
“Good morning, baby,” she said. Mornings and after long naps were always the best times. They were the times when she felt Ethan was really there; when there was a human being behind the eyes and not a—God help her!—not an animated biological machine. But it never lasted. It never lasted. If Doctor Silverman were right, Ethan’s sensory input channels quickly backed up.
Except that today was supposed to be different.
She studied the cable once more. Different. Whatever was wrong with Ethan’s brain, Silverman did not know and could not repair. The brain was still an unplumbed mystery. The best he could manage was this…computer bypass. This experimental computer bypass. Something that would synchronize what Ethan’s brain could not. If Doctor Silverman were right, Ethan could make sense of his inputs now. He could learn things. He could go to school. He could be like any normal boy.
She ran a finger along the computer cable to the computer with the convenient wheels and handle. A normal boy.
Only different.
***
Beatrice sat all hunched into herself on the sofa. The coffee cup clenched in the right hand hovered above a saucer held firmly in the left. [China, of course, one never served Mother on plastic!] “Why does he stare at me that way?” she asked.
Ethan stood before her, solemnly silent. His mouth half open; his left hand gripping the handle of his “wheely.” The umbilical snaked from his skull socket to the processor. His thoughts traveling up and down the wire so the machine, like a patient secretary, could sort them out. No, not his thoughts. Simply neural impulses, translated to electricity and back again by Tom Zachariah’s electro-neural transformer. They were not thoughts until the proper region of Ethan’s brain made them so.
Alma saw how her mother’s eyes kept tracking on that cable, following it back and forth from machine to skull and back, and not once lingering on Ethan’s face. “He is trying to make sense out of you, Mother.” And she enjoyed the double take that triggered. Good luck, Ethan. I’ve been trying for twenty-five years without success.
Beatrice sniffed. “I thought that connecting him to that…thing was supposed to cure him.”
“It’s not so simple, mother. Tom explained that we have years of garbled cognition to unlearn. That’s why the classes are part of the treatment. Ethan learned certain compromises of behavior and coordination that enabled him to get on despite the viscosity of his senses—” That was a good phrase. Viscosity of the senses. Trying to push a message through thick mud. Much like holding a conversation with Mother.
“So, it’s Tom, now? What ever happened to Doctor Zachariah?”
“Mother, we’re friends. He and Doctor Dave and—”
“At least your Silverman is just a Jew and not a jump-up, dark-skinned Hindu who—”
“Mother, he’s a Christian.” Which you are not! “He cares about Ethan.”
“Oh, and I suppose I don’t. I am only the boy’s grandmother, after all. I only want what’s best for the both of you.”
Ethan jumped up and down. The cable snaked in sinusoid curves. “Gammah!” he announced, pointing at Beatrice. “Gammah!” His voice was still slurred a little, but at least he was hearing how his own voice sounded and the feedback was helping him correct it.
Beatrice looked at the boy. “I still say it isn’t natural.”
Mama was always warm and soft. Always the same. Never hard or cold or fuzzy or anything else. And Lambie-pie was always soft and fuzzy and always there when he reached for him and the music made the duckies fly and the flying duckies made the music whenever mama twisted the thing on its side and the bedroom was always over there and the living room over here and the voices only happened when people moved their mouths except for the box voices on the teebee though even there the box people moved their mouths and he could put his pretty ball down and go away and come back and it would still be there and he could reach out and pick it up and it was all so wonderful!
Mick pushed the doorbell once more and stepped back so he would be clearly visible through the peephole. Modern life had evolved its own code of etiquette. He glanced up and down the narrow ro
ad, lined with trees and bushes and plots of flowers. The ’burbs. Not the Mean Streets, but the Bland Streets. They twisted around each other in such a way that this group of houses formed a circle around a patch of woodland in the rear of the properties. The woods were inaccessible from the street and, hence, undevelopable. They formed a refuge for ’coons, muskrats, squirrels and other suburbanites. It was all supposed to make you forget that you were in the most densely populated state of the Union.
He wondered what Alma’s neighbors thought of Ethan’s prosthetic. Did they approve? Did they care? He would probably never know. Alma would probably never know. A man jogged along the blacktop past Alma’s house. Mick watched him. The man looked neither left nor right. He wore a headset and his eyes were narrowed in concentration. Sunk into his own private world, thought Mick. Does he even know he has neighbors? How could people live so close together and yet be virtual strangers to one another?
The door opened just as he was about to ring again and Alma stood framed in the doorway. “Mick,” she said, her voice laced with surprise. Not pleasure. Nor unwelcome. Just a neutral surprise.
“Hello, Alma.” He kept his hands hidden behind his body. “Surprised to see me?”
“I—Yes. Yes, I am. After you ran out, I never expected to see you again.”
Mick kept the smile on his face. I didn’t run out. You drove me out. You were stressed and I couldn’t deal with it. “Are you going to invite me in?”
Alma hesitated a fraction of a second, then stepped aside. Mick crossed the threshold and brought his right hand out. He held a copper bowl with a spray of daffodils and greens. Alma’s face unfolded with delight and Mick sighed in quiet relief.
“Oh, Mick, they’re lovely. And they’re live, not cut. Thank you.” She turned away from him and set them on the sideboard in the entry hall. The yellow of the flowers contrasted nicely with the dark wood; the mirror on the wall behind multiplied the flowers into a garden. Mick could see Alma’s reflection smile down at the flower bowl. “And what’s in your left hand, Mick?”
“Oh, this?” He held out a brightly wrapped rectangle. “It’s for Ethan.”
“Ethan.” Alma’s lips parted and her head bobbed once, slowly. “Of course, Ethan. What is it?”
“Let me give it to him.” Mick stepped into the living room with Alma half a pace behind. “Ethan? Where are you?”
He heard a squeak-squeak-squeak, and the boy stepped from behind the breakfast bar that fronted the kitchen. His face brightened. “Unnca Mmick!” And he hastened toward him, with his computer appendage in tow. “Unca Miiick!”
Mick turned to Alma. “He recognizes me,” he said with pleasure.
“Yes, he’s become…What is that in his hand? A sandwich? Oh, my God.” Alma ran to cut Ethan off.
Mick stood open-mouthed. A sandwich? And she freaks out?
“Oh, Ethan! Ethan. You know you shouldn’t do that. You could have cut yourself.”
Ethan held his other hand up. “Knife,” he said. Alma grabbed it from him in a convulsive gesture.
“For God’s sake, Alma. It’s only a butter knife.”
“He can hurt himself with it! He can.”
Ethan’s eyes went big and round. “Hurt?”
Mick hunkered down on his knees. “Hey. Hey, guy. Look what I brought you. Look here.” He held up the brightly wrapped present and waved it.
Ethan forgot his fears instantly and turned to Mick. “Pretty,” he said. Mick handed the gift to him and watched as he laughed and tore off the wrappings.
It was a Dr. Seuss book. The boy goggled at it; then looked at Mick. His mouth was a silent O. Then he turned and held it up to his mother.
She took the book from him and opened it. “Oh, Mick, he can’t read.”
“Not yet; but he will soon.”
“It will take time. Doctor Silverman said it would take time. He still needs me.”
“Of course, he does; but as time goes on, he’ll be able to do all sorts of things on his own. Won’t you, Ethan?”
“Only up to a point, Mick. After all, an artificial leg doesn’t let you do everything that a two-legged person can.”
“I suppose not.” Ethan would always be slow, Dave had confided in him. Years of retarded sensation had inhibited his learning. He could learn now, but he would probably never function at age level.
Mick refused to feel sorry for the boy. Maybe Ethan would always be a few rungs down, but at least he was on the ladder. “Think positive, Alma. You won’t have to worry so much.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you go out. About his getting into trouble. You know.”
“He can still get into trouble. Even normal boys get into trouble.”
“Sure, but—”
“You don’t care about him at all, do you?” She waved the Dr. Seuss book in his face. “You thought that just because he has his prosthetic I can abandon him, like other single mothers. Go out, have a good time, and never mind the kid.”
“Now, wait a minute, Alma. That’s not fair. You have a life, too.”
“You’re just thinking of yourself. All you’ve ever wanted to do was get inside my pants. Get between me and my responsibilities. Don’t you know how much Ethan needs me? Who do you think you are? You come in here trying to run my child’s life—” Mick ducked as she threw the book at him. Ethan jumped and tried to grab it as it arced over his head. “Go on. Get out of here!”
Outside, Mick shoved his hands in his pants pockets and kicked a stone down the driveway. What in the world had brought on that tirade? Did she resent him that much for walking out on her before? Running her child’s life…Did she know? He looked back over his shoulder at the silent door. The federal grant would not have covered the surgery, let alone the remedial therapy. There just wasn’t enough money in the public coffers. But Dave had promised that he wouldn’t tell Alma where the rest of the money had come from. He had promised. And that ungrateful Alma—
He walked down the driveway toward his car. Silverman hadn’t revealed anything. He cast a last look back at the door. Alma would have thrown it in his face if she had known. And so his savings were gone with last winter’s snows and he didn’t even have a thank you to show for it.
He remembered Ethan jumping for the book as it sailed past him. Living in real time, like any normal boy. He remembered Ethan’s delight when he had torn the wrappings away.
He unlocked the car door. And caught himself whistling. Funny. Alma was right. I did have selfish motives. I thought that if Dave and Tom could fix Ethan up, she could make room in her life for another person. For me. Alma and I could have a normal relationship. But the weight of the chains lingered long after they had been cut away, just as Ethan’s vision had lingered after he closed his eyes. It hadn’t hit Alma yet that the chains were gone. And when it did, it would be too late for him to step back into her life. Someone else would reap where he had sown. And yet, he was whistling.
Because he did have a thank you. A child’s smile. Calculate the ROI on that.
The supermarket was never crowded this early on a Saturday, which was a good thing because Dave had told her that large crowds might still be stressful. Too much input all at once. Neural nets, Tom had explained, also need to learn. It wasn’t as simple as “plug him in and turn him on.”
She could feel, and sometimes saw from the corner of her eye, the way the other shoppers turned their heads to stare at Ethan. It did not seem to bother him. He strolled along the aisle by her side staring at the rows of brightly labeled cans. He pulled his “wheely” along in his left hand. One of the wheels on the computer had lost a bearing or something because it squeaked as he rolled it along.
Another mother, with a ten-year-old boy in tow, passed her in the aisle going the other way. Again, Alma saw how the eyes tracked the computer and then flicked ever so briefly to Alma. The other boy was overweight, his cheeks so full that they pinched his eyes into slits behind his glasses. He was eating from a torn-open b
ag of candy corn. He gawked openly at Ethan; then he pointed and laughed. “Get a Walkman,” he said.
Alma ignored them and they disappeared down the aisle and turned into Baked Goods. Ethan tugged at her sleeve. “Mamma,” he said. “Maamaa. Wassa Wawkmaan?”
“Never mind for now, Ethan. I’ll tell you later.” She checked her shopping list. “Let’s see. We need cereal. And what else? Peas, carrots, green beans. And milk. No.” She pulled the pencil from behind her ear and crossed that off. “We already have the milk, don’t we Ethan?”
She looked down by her side and he was gone.
Her heart flipped over. Ethan? Where was he? Why hadn’t she heard the squeaky wheel?
Before she could move, she did hear the wheel and Ethan turned the corner from the next aisle over. He had a colorful box of cereal balanced on his computer, which he pushed before him like a shopping cart. “Fouund it, maamaa!” he said. “Found it.” He grabbed it off the computer and held it up to her.
“Oh, Ethan, you don’t like that kind of cereal. You want the one with the jogger on the front. Don’t worry. Give it to me; I’ll exchange it. Stay right there and don’t move.”
She hurried to the dry cereal aisle and set the cereal box on a shelf at random. She ran her finger along the ranks of boxes, looking for…
A cry! Ethan!
She scurried back to the canned vegetable aisle to find the fat boy pulling on Ethan’s umbilical cable. “Let me listen,” the fat boy was saying. “It’s my turn.” Ethan was crying and waving his arms, trying to grab the cable. Every time the fat boy tugged, Ethan’s head jerked.
“You let go of him, you awful boy! You let go!” Alma strode toward them.
The fat boy saw her coming and dropped the cable and ran, calling, “Mommy.”
Alma dropped to her knees next to her sobbing son. He was rubbing the shaved spot on his head where the cable was attached. “It hu-hurts,” he said. “It hu-hu-hu-hurts.” He talked in gulps between the sobs.
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