Mr. Fischer considered his sons in turn, aware of Danny’s attitude but in no way sympathetic to it. “Colin, take your dinner and go to your room,” he said. “Danny, how we discipline your brother isn’t your problem.” He was very matter-of-fact.
Colin murmured a low “thank you” as he grabbed a plate of pizza from under the glass cover that was keeping it warm and fished in the open refrigerator for water. He tested the bottles’ temperatures each in turn with his hand so he could take the coldest, then quietly padded up the stairs, mentally reviewing the events of the day. There were almost too many; the best next step in the investigation felt like a warm bath and a good night’s sleep.
Danny watched him go, turning back to his father when Colin was safely up the stairs, out of earshot. “So he’s not in trouble,” he said.
“Zip it, or you will be,” Mrs. Fischer replied. Danny opened his mouth to argue, but his mother was quicker. “No comments from the peanut gallery.25 I want every peanut in the house in bed. Five minutes. Go.” Early on, she worried the techniques she used to manage teams of engineers would bleed over and complicate her efforts to discipline her children. Now she knew that engineers and children were the same animal.
Danny trudged loudly up the stairs without another word or editorial sigh, each deliberate step registering his disapproval. A moment later, the click of his bedroom door echoed down to the kitchen. There was a soft thud as his small body flopped onto a bed.
The Fischer parents sat at the kitchen table, two large glasses of wine already waiting for them. Then a new sound came—water, running through the pipes upstairs.
“Colin,” Mr. Fischer guessed, “taking a bath.” He took a generous sip of red wine. “I can’t say I blame him.”
Mrs. Fischer sighed heavily. “We were hoping high school would make him more independent. Be careful what you wish for, right?”
“Independent? Independent is fine. But there’s independent, and there’s going rogue.”
“Lying, running across town with a juvenile delinquent…Where does it end?” Mrs. Fischer frowned. Danny’s soda bottle had etched a faint ring into the surface of her kitchen table. She used the end of her sleeve to rub it away.
“The cat might as well start barking for all the sense it makes,” Mr. Fischer said, looking around to see where the cat had gone.
“God, no. Bad enough that he likes to curl up around my face at night.”
“So what can we do about it?”
“Nothing. I throw him off; he just climbs back on. Little bastard.”
Mr. Fischer playfully flicked a bottle cap from Danny’s discarded soda in his wife’s direction. She caught it expertly, then tossed it in a wastebasket across the sink.
“We can revisit the special-school option,” she said. “But we both know…”
“…that’s wrong. Maybe it’s easier for us. But it’s wrong for him.”
“There was a time when what was right for him was easier for us.”
“Oh yeah? When was that?” Mr. Fischer smiled.
Water gurgled through the pipes overhead, draining from a bathtub. “Three minutes exactly,” Mrs. Fischer noted. “The boy is like a machine.”
“You know,” Mr. Fischer said, “I’m gonna miss the days when he just wanted to stay in his room, read about sharks, and listen to Rubber Soul over and over again.”
There was a moment of silence. The bathroom door opened upstairs.
“So not missing the Rubber Soul.”
“Yeah, okay. Me neither.” Mr. Fischer shook his head, like he was escaping some distant psychological trauma. But the floodgates had opened, now. “Or how about the listing of the scientific inaccuracies in Jaws. You remember when—”
He never finished his sentence. His voice was drowned out by a deafening crash from upstairs, followed by frantic, hysterical shouting. The Fischers sprang to their feet and raced upstairs, taking the steps in twos.
They found Colin in his pajamas before the open door to his room, screaming, not entirely coherently. A violent torrent of words exploded from him. “HE RUINED IT HE DESTROYED EVERYTHING WHY WOULD HE DO THIS EVERYTHING IS RUINED IT’S ALL WRONG HE DESTROYED IT HE RUINED EVERYTHING…”
Mr. Fischer approached slowly, speaking in a low, calming voice, his arms relaxed and hands open, careful not to touch Colin or even suggest that he might. This was not the first time they had seen this behavior, and it would not be the last. “Colin, buddy. What happened? Tell me what happened.”
Mrs. Fischer looked beyond Colin and immediately saw the source of anger and panic. His bed was unmade, the sheets tossed back. The carefully arranged stacks of books had fallen from their shelves, the contents of his desk lay in a pile on the floor. It was as if they had been swept there with one violent arm motion. Beneath the cork board along Colin’s wall, the photographs he had so painstakingly printed, arranged, and tacked into place lay strewn like autumn leaves, strands of yarn still connecting them together.
Mrs. Fischer repeated in a reassuring tone, “Colin, don’t worry. Colin, don’t worry. We’ll fix it.” She spoke his name deliberately. It was a way of connecting with him when he was in this state. She reached out to clasp his arm—sometimes, Colin allowed her contact he would not under some circumstances allow his father—but Colin roughly twisted away from her touch. He pointed an accusing finger down the hallway.
“WHY DID YOU DO THAT WHY WOULD YOU RUIN EVERYTHING YOU RUINED EVERYTHING YOU DESTROYED IT ALL…”
Danny stood at the doorway to his own room. His arms were crossed over his chest and eyes downcast in an expression Colin would have recognized as DEFIANT had he been processing rationally. “What?” Danny said, more a challenge than a question.
Colin lunged toward his younger brother, screaming. “WHY DID YOU RUIN EVERYTHING?” he roared as his father stepped into his path and wrapped his arms around him. Mr. Fischer gripped his son tightly, Colin’s face buried in his shoulder.
It was in its own way an extreme measure. To the outside world, it might look as though he were smothering his son, but the hard, even pressure against Colin’s long nerves slowly calmed him.26 His harsh, ragged breathing began to steady and slow. It became more even. More oxygen entered Colin’s system, calming him.
As Colin melted, his mother turned her attention to Danny. “What did you do?”
Danny stared at his feet, avoiding his mother’s gaze. “I couldn’t find my iPod,” he mumbled. “I thought Colin might have taken it.”
His answer undid everything his father’s embrace had accomplished. “I DID NOT I NEVER TAKE YOUR THINGS I DON’T EVEN LIKE YOUR MUSIC…”
Mr. Fischer renewed his grip on Colin. “Colin, easy.”
He struggled to ratchet down Colin’s latest outburst, holding him tight as his wife marched toward Danny. The younger boy flinched, despite the fact that in his entire life, his mother had never done more than lightly swat him on the bottom. His reaction was purely instinctive. On some level, all children know their mothers are fully capable of killing and eating them. Danny was no different.
“And that gives you the right to tear apart his room?” Mrs. Fischer demanded. She knew how furious she was and was doing her damnedest not to make things worse by indulging herself. “You know how Colin is about his things being moved.”
Danny reacted like any animal when cornered. He chose to fight. His yell started at the balls of his feet and ended at his forehead, the adrenaline consuming him as he let loose. “You’re damn right I know how he is! You all walk on tippy-toes around him and are all ‘Oh, poor Colin’ whenever he acts like a retard and I’m the one who gets—”
“What did you call him?” There was no containing the anger now.
Danny visibly cowered against the doorframe. He had never seen his mother this angry, and he was afraid. His defiant petulance gave way to backpedaling defensiveness. In primate terms, the alpha female had bared her teeth. Now it was the juvenile’s turn to show submission. “I—I didn’t say he w
as one. I said he was acting like one.”
Mrs. Fischer stood six inches from Danny, deep inside his personal space. “We do not use that word in this house,” she growled. “You especially don’t use it toward your brother. You will never use it again. I don’t care how he acts.”
“You think he doesn’t hear it whenever he goes out that door?” Danny asked, suddenly quiet. “Do you know the things they call him?”
“I have a pretty good idea,” his mother snapped, voice rising. “Which makes it even more important he doesn’t hear it from the people who are supposed to love him!”
Danny looked past her to Colin, squeezed into his father’s shoulder. The HATE returned to his lips. “Well…maybe I don’t. Maybe I hate him. I HATE YOU, COLIN, YOU’RE A RETARD AND I HATE YOU—”
“Danny!” Mrs. Fischer shouted. She reached for him, her hands like claws.
“Susan!” Mr. Fischer barked, trying to keep everyone together. Powerless.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Colin said suddenly. He was very calm.
Everyone stopped. Mrs. Fischer and Danny both turned to Colin, the unexpected voice of reason. Mr. Fischer relaxed his grip on his son, who was still red-faced but much calmer. Colin faced his mother and younger brother.
“No, really,” he insisted. “Mental retardation is defined by having an IQ below 70 to 75. My IQ is…”
Colin stopped himself. Marie had taught him not to discuss his actual IQ, which had been tested at anywhere between 155 and 180.27 She told him it would sound to others like he was bragging. “…higher than that,” Colin finished. “Why should it bother me if someone calls me something I’m not?”
The Fischers looked at Colin. Then they looked at Danny. Then, finally, at each other. After what seemed to Danny like a very long time (Colin timed it at seventeen seconds), Mrs. Fischer finally recovered the power of speech. “Danny,” she breathed out, “go to your room and stay there. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”
“Aren’t you going to make me say I’m sorry?”
Mr. Fischer put a hand on his wife’s shoulder and regarded Danny. There was no anger on his face or in his voice. His shoulders slumped in a way that made him suddenly look smaller and older than his years. He was simply weary of it all. “You’ll say it when you feel it. Now go.”
Almost subliminal RELIEF flickered across Danny’s face. Then he backed away and slowly closed the door to his own room. Colin observed he was careful to pull it shut quietly, guessing this was so as not to give the impression of resentment or defiance.
“Colin,” Mr. Fischer said, gesturing toward the disaster area that just this morning had looked like Colin’s bedroom. “Can we give you a hand with that? If we all work together, I’ll bet we can put it to rights in no time.”
Colin looked at his disordered room. When he spoke, the words came slowly and carefully. He was working hard not to lose control of himself again at the sight of it. “No, thank you. If it’s all right, I’d like to do it myself. Good night.”
“Okay,” his mother reassured him. Her tone indicated more acceptance than approval of Colin’s proclamation. “If you need anything, you know where to find us.”
“Yes, I do. In the kitchen drinking wine or up in your room watching a premium cable show with violence and nudity.”
With that, Colin stepped into his room and shut the door behind him.
Colin’s anxiety and anger threatened to overwhelm him again as he surveyed the state of his belongings. While it appeared that nothing had actually been destroyed in Danny’s ransacking, Colin had very particular ideas about where all of his things should go. At the end of a day that had pushed him far out of his comfort zone, the unexpected jolt of destruction to a place that had been safe and familiar to him was difficult to bear.
Colin forced himself to close his eyes, and then he summoned a picture of how his room was supposed to look in its organized state. A quick mental inventory confirmed none of his belongings were actually missing. His stress levels reduced considerably.
Colin closed his eyes again. Now he was seeking to access his mental picture of the room and use it as a reference for returning things to their proper places. But to his surprise, he instead found his mind turning unbidden toward another memory entirely: the school cafeteria during the moment the gun went off.
Colin heard the deafening bang in the enclosed space. He felt his eardrums ring painfully. He smelled the acrid cordite from the cartridge as it overwhelmed the taste of carrots in his mouth. He saw students and even teachers running, in a panic. He saw the gun resting on the floor, pistol grip covered in pink and white-chocolate frosting.
For a moment, Colin wondered if he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.28 No, Colin concluded. While he was experiencing the memory of the gunshot and the chaos in the moments that followed, he wasn’t attaching any negative emotions to it. He felt only the curiosity and desire to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Colin was certain that something was out of place in the cafeteria that day, just as the contents of his room were out of place now. His memory rewound to the moments before the gun discharged, and Colin let his mind play over the details, no matter how small or unimportant they seemed. He remembered the sights, the smells, and the sounds. He pictured the people who were present, and what were they doing.
Unfortunately, as Colin knew, the human mind was an imperfect recording device. Instead of presenting things objectively, it emphasized the things it found most interesting. In Colin’s case, this meant that his main memories of the moments before the gun went off involved Melissa Greer leaning over the table to invite him for cake…the scent of strawberries in her shampoo…her unexpectedly low, husky voice…the way her blouse hung as she leaned forward, affording him a view of her cleavage….
Colin’s eyes snapped open. He still didn’t know what was out of place in the cafeteria that day. But it was enough to know something was amiss—it was enough to know something important was missing. He looked one more time at the pile of books and papers littering his carpet, then the remains of his social map. It seemed impossibly scattered. None of the relationships made sense anymore: Jocks were with nerds. Romances had become rivalries, rivalries friendships. Colin spotted the black triangle with Wayne’s name scrawled on it. It had fallen into a corner by itself. As he returned it to the group, he saw that a photo of Rudy Moore had come to rest on top of the others. Something about the look on his face gave Colin that unsettling impression Rudy was staring at him. Colin moved away, but Rudy’s eyes seemed to follow. Colin could not avoid the disturbing effect, no matter where he stood in his room. Finally, he turned the photo over. Leaving the rest of the map as it lay, Colin climbed into bed.
Moments later, the day’s traumas not forgotten but compartmentalized, Colin fell into a deep sleep.
When Colin’s parents awoke the next morning, they found their forgotten wineglasses had been covered in plastic and set on a high shelf. The kitchen was spotless. It smelled of bacon and French toast and hot syrup, and three places had been set with food to be eaten and juice to wash it down.
“Good morning,” Colin said. He sat in a high-backed chair, reading the book on sharks his parents had given him as a child. “I made breakfast for everyone.”
“Are you going to join us?” his father asked, impressed with the spread. He indicated the third place setting, inviting Colin to take a seat.
“Oh, no,” Colin said. “I’ve already eaten.”
He went back to reading, and his parents ate what he had prepared. Danny joined them a few minutes later, surprised to find something more complicated than Special K waiting for him. He never asked who was responsible for feeding him nor did he offer his thanks. He simply smiled with every bite, HAPPY. But it didn’t matter, really.
Colin was already out the door and on his way to school.
25 Mrs. Fischer had learned the phrase from her own mother without having any idea what it actually meant. Eight-year-o
ld Colin helpfully pointed out that “peanut gallery” was an old vaudeville term used to describe the cheapest seats in a theater and the rowdy patrons who would sit there, jeering and tossing peanuts at performers they didn’t like. Colin solemnly promised never to throw peanuts at his mother.
26 The technique was inspired by famous autistic livestock handler and author Temple Grandin, who observed that the “squeeze box” used to immobilize cattle for vaccinations and medical examinations also had the effect of calming the animals. Grandin later adapted the box into a “hug machine” of her own design that she crawled into when she was under emotional duress. As Colin grew and matured, Mr. Fischer realized that this ad hoc technique of calming his son would eventually lose its effectiveness.
27 Colin’s excellent memory and early mastery of reading and mathematics made it difficult to test his IQ accurately, a frequent problem with child prodigies.
28 A psychological condition in which combat veterans and other witnesses to violent events find themselves constantly reliving the source of their trauma.
CHAPTER TWELVE:
TEST BITES
When I was small, my father bought me a book on sharks and other dangerous sea creatures such as the killer whale and the giant squid. They were all very interesting. However, my favorite ocean-dwelling predator was always the great white shark.
At up to 20 feet in length and 5,000 lbs, mouth filled with serrated, dagger-like teeth, the great white (Carcharodon carcharias) is found in all the Earth’s oceans. It is responsible for more attacks on humans than any other shark species. Given its size, ferocity, and status as an apex predator, this isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that most of these attacks are nonfatal.
Scientists initially hypothesized that a human in the water, seen from below on a surf or paddleboard, would resemble the outline of a seal or sea lion—the great white shark’s favorite meal. Since the shark’s standard tactic is to ambush its prey with a quick, devastating bite and then wait as the unfortunate animal bleeds to death, the theory held that victims had time to haul themselves out of the water after the initial bite. Though widely accepted when first articulated, this theory has proved to be incorrect.
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