Colin Fischer

by Ashley Edward Miller

  As they skidded into the produce section and took cover behind a banana stand, they watched the security guard step in front of El Cocodrilo and the others. Colin couldn’t hear what they were saying, although the security guard’s hand on his radio told him it probably involved a call to the police. The vatos strained to see their prey over the racks of fruits and vegetables as the guard shooed them out, but they’d been stymied.

  Wayne and Colin took a second to catch their breath. “Where the hell did you learn to run like that?” Wayne asked, hands on his knees and sucking down oxygen.

  “First grade,” Colin said. “After that time you beat me up next to the swing set.”

  Wayne considered Colin for what seemed to Colin like a very long time, his expression frozen. Colin was confused. All he had done was provide a factual answer to Wayne’s question. Colin wondered if he’d said something wrong without realizing it. This occurred often, so it wouldn’t have surprised Colin at all if he had.

  Finally, Wayne looked away. “Oh,” he said.

  Mr. Fischer answered the phone on the third ring.

  “Hello, Dad. This is Colin.”

  “Colin?” Mr. Fischer asked with feigned confusion. “Colin who?”

  “Your son,” Colin explained helpfully.

  “Oh, that Colin,” Mr. Fischer replied. “I almost forgot I had a son named Colin because he missed dinner.”

  “I missed dinner because I’m at the Vons grocery store in Sylmar. And I have no money for a bus, and I need a ride home.”

  “Sylmar,” Mr. Fischer repeated, enunciating the word carefully to make certain he’d heard Colin correctly. He looked at his wife, who had just entered the living room. “It’s Colin,” he explained, covering the receiver, “He’s in Sylmar.”

  “Sylmar? Holy sh—!”

  “Shhh.” Mr. Fischer said, holding a finger to his lips. Mrs. Fischer pursed her own lips as tight as she could, a little afraid herself of what might come out.

  “Dad?” Colin asked through the phone.

  “Yes, son. I’m here.”

  Mrs. Fischer gave her husband the MOM FACE, the one that demanded to be told what was going on. He waved her off. He didn’t really know what was going on, and he suspected getting Colin to tell him anything substantial would take some effort.

  “My friend Wayne needs a ride too.”

  “Wayne…Connelly?” Mr. Fischer guessed, trying to mask his concern. This was as much for his wife’s benefit as Colin’s. He knew that nothing was more dangerous and unpredictable than a mother who believed her child was in distress.

  “Wayne Connelly?” Mrs. Fischer exclaimed. “Holy sh—!”

  “Shhh!” Mr. Fischer turned away from her, shielding the phone with his body.

  “Oh, I hate you,” she declared. He blew her a kiss over his shoulder.

  “Yes,” Colin finally said. “Wayne Connelly. Can you give him a ride?”

  “Of course,” his father said. “I’m coming, Colin. Just sit tight.”

  “Thank you.”

  There was a brief silence before Colin spoke again. “Dad?”

  “Yes, son.”

  “You should look for a parking spot very close to the door. As close as you can get—even if it takes you more time.” Then there was silence at the other end of the line. Colin had hung up, having said everything he’d intended to say.

  Danny loped into the room. “Was that the spaz?” he asked.

  “Your brother is in Sylmar with Wayne Connelly,” Mr. Fischer explained.

  “Don’t call him the spaz,” Mrs. Fischer warned.

  “Sylmar. Not the library?” A broad smile spread across Danny’s face. He burst into triumphant laughter, which ended with a light smack to the back of his head.

  “Say it,” his mother warned, “and I’ll end all of your troubles forever.”

  Danny made a face, but he knew well enough to keep any further I-told-you-so to himself. He wandered back to the kitchen in a funk. Even a moment of vindication could be stymied by his brother’s weirdness.

  Mr. Fischer grabbed his wallet and keys and headed for the door.

  “I’m coming with you,” Mrs. Fischer said.

  Mr. Fischer held up a hand and shook his head. “Let me explain something about boys,” he began. “Sometimes, the last thing in the world a boy wants is his mother—especially when he needs her the most.”

  “That’s stupid.”

  “Yes.”

  With that, Mr. Fischer set out alone into the night to rescue his boy.

  Colin stared at his cell phone a moment before stuffing it into his backpack. Something about his father’s tone confused him, but he couldn’t quite identify it. He wondered about the loud sounds from his mother and the laughter from his brother. Did his family know he’d lied? Either way, Colin knew he’d find out soon enough.

  “Well?” Wayne asked behind him.

  “My father is coming to get us.”

  For a moment, Wayne’s face froze. He turned away from Colin, perhaps realizing that his uneasy ally was trying to read his expression. “Great,” Wayne muttered.

  “Yes.”

  Then, thinking nothing more of it, Colin produced his Notebook and a green-ink pen and began to write.

  23 The precise origin of the phrase is in question, but Colin understood it in the context of learning to play poker. “Put up” meant to meet the call, and “shut up” meant to fold. An avid Texas Hold ’Em player, Mr. Fischer was less than delighted to discover that Colin’s uncanny memory and lack of emotional indicators made it impossible to tell when he was bluffing. “I have to take you to Vegas someday,” Mr. Fischer would say. What he really meant was “I’d rather play against your mother.”

  CHAPTER TEN:

  ROGUE PREDATORS

  The Serengeti Plains are home to the greatest variety and concentration of megafauna on planet Earth.

  How do so many different animals manage to share one geographic space? By specializing. Each species occupies its own niche in the Serengeti ecosystem. In a place where the different species have to come together—for example, a watering hole—the animals avoid conflict by moving in predictable patterns. Even the carnivores drink at set times, allowing their prey to plan accordingly.

  However, every ecosystem has its rogue predators, the most dangerous animals of all. Because they don’t follow any patterns, their behavior can’t be predicted or planned for. You never know when one will show up at the watering hole to cause trouble.

  In the short term, rogue behavior is an excellent survival strategy. The unpredictability increases the chances that potential prey will find itself out in the open and vulnerable. In the long term, the strategy can’t sustain itself. The system adapts. Would-be midnight snacks fall back even more on the protection of the herd, making food harder to come by. Other predators are affected by this and react with displeasure to an interloper who doesn’t follow the rules.

  Usually, the rogue comes to an unhappy end. Though sometimes, the responses from the environment force a change in its behavior, resulting in a sort of rehabilitation. I find it interesting that in this respect, the animal kingdom isn’t much different from human civilization—in the end, crime doesn’t pay. And punishment can have results as varied as the species of the Serengeti Plains.

  Wayne wandered back toward the magazine section, where Colin sat writing. “They’re still there,” he announced. “I think they’re trying to wait us out.”

  Colin nodded, not really paying attention. He was too focused on recording his thoughts on everything that happened since Wayne instructed him to put his Notebook away. He had many.

  “Did you hear me?” Wayne asked.

  Colin blinked at him behind his glasses. “Yes,” he replied. “They’re still there. You think they’re trying to wait us out.” He went back to writing.

  Wayne stared at Colin with a CURIOUS frown, trying to make sense of this weird kid. It was impossible. So he did the only thing he could do—he
grabbed a car magazine to pass the time while they awaited rescue. He flipped through it, mainly looking at pictures of the sports cars he desperately wanted to drive someday when he had a license.

  “What’s in that Notebook, anyway?” Wayne asked, reading.

  “Facts,” Colin answered, still writing.

  “Facts about what?”

  “Facts about everything.”

  “Oh.”

  Wayne opened to a photo of a new Porsche 911 and smiled. “Porsche,” he said. “My dad had one of these. My real dad.” Wayne closed the magazine with a frown and jammed it back into the rack a little too hard, crinkling the binding.

  “You have a real dad?” Colin asked.

  “Yeah.” Wayne reached for another magazine. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Colin was still writing. “Are you writing that down?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought you said it was all facts.”

  “It is. And thoughts.”

  Wayne looked at Colin seriously. “Can I read it? Your Notebook, I mean.”

  “No.”

  There was a long silence between them. Low-grade alarm tickled Colin’s chest. He was vaguely concerned that Wayne would simply take it from him. Experience told him this wasn’t an unreasonable worry.

  “Okay,” Wayne said finally. He consumed an article about modified power trains, but only with halfhearted interest. His eyes kept drifting toward Colin and his Notebook. If Colin was aware of the attention, he gave no indication.

  “Is there other stuff about me in there?” Wayne asked, trying to sound offhand.

  “Oh, yes,” Colin replied. “There are several entries about you. In fact, I would say that you appear in these pages more often than anyone outside my family or possibly Melissa Greer.” Colin thought a moment and then added, “Melissa is my friend.”

  “Your friend,” Wayne repeated.

  “Yes,” Colin said. “Melissa has always been nice to me.”

  “Do you, um…just write about nice things that people do?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “And how long have you been writing in that thing?”

  “Since preschool,” Colin explained.

  “Right.”

  Wayne put back the second magazine and slumped down next to Colin.

  “Seriously, dude,” he said. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Asperger’s syndrome is a neurological condition related to—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Wayne interrupted him. “I know you’re like a really smart retard or something. I mean…what the hell is wrong with you? What are you doing here? Why are you trying to help me?”

  “You’re innocent.”

  “Innocent.” Wayne leaned back against the rack and shook his head. “No, man. I’m not. I just didn’t do it.”

  “Colin,” a man’s voice said. Colin recognized it instantly. He looked up and saw his father standing there, staring at them. He looked WORRIED.

  “Hello, Dad,” Colin said. “How was your day?”

  “Good.” Mr. Fischer narrowed his eyes, taking a moment to process the sight of his son sitting with Wayne Connelly. “Let’s go home.”

  They were almost to Wayne’s neighborhood when the silence broke. “So, Wayne,” Mr. Fischer said, “you and Colin…you’re friends. In school?”

  It sounded a bit like a test, and in a sense it was. Mr. Fischer knew very well how things could change between children over time, especially between boys. Conflict had a way of forging friendships, a story as old as the epic of Gilgamesh and Enkidu.24 The friend in this case wasn’t necessarily someone he would have chosen for his son, but Mr. Fischer understood the choice wasn’t his to make.

  “Um…yeah,” Wayne managed.

  “Wayne is the reason I came home from school early on the first day,” Colin offered suddenly. “He put my head in the sink, and then he put my head in the toilet and he flushed it.”

  Mr. Fischer forced a smile. Wayne shifted uneasily in his seat.

  “Um. Yeah,” Wayne said again, hoping Colin would leave it there.

  “People think he brought a gun to school, but I know he didn’t because there was frosting on the gun and Wayne eats very neatly.” Colin was certain that a statement of the facts would allay any concerns his father might have.

  Mr. Fischer shot a look at Wayne in the rearview mirror, somewhere between a question and a warning. The more he learned, he realized, the less he knew. “That’s…fantastic,” he said.

  Mercifully, it wasn’t long before Mr. Fischer’s sedan pulled up to the curb near Wayne’s house. Colin noticed someone had taken the pink Big Wheel inside as Wayne wordlessly climbed out of the car.

  He was halfway to his front door when Colin’s father spoke up after him. “Wayne, wait.”

  Wayne took a deep breath. Mr. Fischer was standing by the driver’s door, looking decidedly uncomfortable with the whole situation. “If you think they wouldn’t mind,” Mr. Fischer began, “I’d like to talk to your parents for a minute.”

  Wayne looked at his shoes. “Yeah. They’re not home. They go out a lot. You know, the movies.”

  Colin watched the exchange from the backseat. He wrinkled his nose with confusion, having never seen this particular emotion from Wayne before. Indeed, Colin had thought Wayne incapable of it. There was no recourse but to consult the cheat sheet. Colin flipped through flash cards, finally forced to accept what he could plainly see:

  Wayne Connelly was AFRAID.

  Mr. Fischer drummed his fingers on the hood of the car, weighing the pros and cons of marching up to the Connellys’ door whether Wayne liked it or not. He didn’t need permission from a fourteen-year-old boy. On the other hand, there were things he didn’t know about this particular boy—and there was always the chance that a talk with Wayne’s parents would do far more harm than good.

  “Right,” Mr. Fischer said finally. “Some other time, then.” He slid back into the driver’s seat and put the car into gear.

  Wayne hesitated a moment, then gestured at Colin to roll down the window, which Colin did. “Mr. Fischer?” Wayne started as the barrier dropped. “Thanks. For picking us up I mean.” He looked at Colin with a frown that Colin couldn’t fathom at all. “And Fischer…Colin. I’m really sorry about the swing set.”

  With that, Wayne disappeared inside his house.

  Colin and his father heard the echo of a man shouting Wayne’s name and something else (unpleasant). For a moment, Mr. Fischer just sat there staring at the steering wheel. Then he turned to his son, a tight smile drawing his lips together, though Colin was quite certain his father wasn’t HAPPY.

  “Are you angry with me?” Colin asked, guessing.

  Mr. Fischer didn’t answer, which left Colin more perplexed than ever. Did his father want him to guess again? Was he too angry for words? Colin understood this was conceivable but had (to his knowledge) never actually inspired it in his parents. For the first time, Colin grappled with the possibility that he was in very serious trouble. Just as he was about to say “I’m sorry,” Mr. Fischer raised a hand with his fingers splayed.

  “Coming in for a landing,” he said.

  Colin braced himself as his father laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. It was a gentle squeeze, and it did not feel ANGRY or seem to have any point at all other than to be exactly what it was.

  Then they drove away, and Mr. Fischer did not speak again.

  24 Gilgamesh was the lonely and cruel king of Uruk. He first battled and then befriended the wild man called Enkidu, with whom he had had many adventures and fought the demon Humbaba. Through his unlikely friendship with the strange, unpredictable outsider, Gilgamesh grew into a good and just king and a hero. Colin had read this was how most friendships began between men—combat, followed by misadventure. It made him wonder if his aversion to wrestling was also the reason for his relative solitude.

  PART THREE:

  THE OLYMPIC TRAMPOLINE TEAM

  CHAPTER ELEVEN:

  HELL
IS OTHER PEOPLE

  My father designs drive systems for unmanned spacecraft at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. This sounds very exotic and futuristic, but in fact the engines my father works on are chemical rockets that would be recognizable to Goddard, von Braun, Parsons, or the other rocketry pioneers of sixty years ago.

  Other methods of powering interplanetary spacecraft have been proposed over the decades, from solar sails to ion engines and nuclear pulse propulsion, which involved ejecting atomic bombs from the rear of a spacecraft and exploding them against a metal pusher plate to launch the ship to the outer planets. None of these developed to maturity, which my father regards as the major impediment to manned space travel beyond the moon.

  However, the real problems lie not in mechanical limitations, but human ones.

  Using chemical rockets, a manned trip to Mars would take a minimum of six months in each direction. Astronauts on such a long journey would be subjected to the long-term physical stresses of microgravity, causing their muscles to atrophy and bones to weaken. Also, cosmic rays beyond the Earth’s magnetic field would bombard them with harmful radiation. (Apollo astronauts on lunar journeys reported “flashes” of light whenever they closed their eyes, as cosmic rays collided with their retinas.)

  All of that is difficult to overcome, but they remain engineering problems. No engineering solution can address the psychological hurdle—the mental stresses caused by a handful of people living in close proximity for months at a time, with no hope for escape and no opportunities for solitude. “I’ve seen the reports from the Antarctic research stations, and they aren’t pretty,” my father told me. When I asked him why, he answered with a quote from a play by Jean-Paul Sartre, “No Exit”: “Hell is other people.”

  Colin and his father found his mother and Danny waiting for them in the kitchen.

  “Everything’s fine,” Mr. Fischer said flatly.

  Danny leaned forward in his chair, letting his spoon fall into his ice cream bowl with a sharp clink. “Is he in trouble?” Danny asked, incongruously HOPEFUL. Colin was too hungry and too tired to subject his brother’s reaction to more detailed analysis.