Toybox

by Al Sarrantonio

  Red fire snapped, moved around her fingers, dispersed.

  Suddenly his moaning stopped; his breath evened, his eyes closed. Marjorie's hand stayed against his skin for a moment before lifting.

  ~ * ~

  She was attracted to him because he was a boy. Not in age, but in physical essence, his long, soft sad face, his full mouth. His slow huge deep brown eyes, large for any boy or man, were set too deeply into the lines under his brow, made him appear to be looking at the world from some faraway place. His thin hair was never combed , falling in a thin brown-blonde lick across his forehead.

  He was a genius, and she knew, deep inside her somewhere, that it was a mothering instinct and not sexual attraction that made her want to know him.

  “I don't understand” he said to her quietly one day as she stood in the doorway of his dormitory room, his soft voice puzzled more than kind, his face like long, sad fleshy dog's, the full mouth downturned. She felt a brief ethereal chill looking at that alien face, and then a pang of need filled her and she overcame her reluctance and said again, “I'd like to go out with you.”

  “He doesn't date,” Richard's roommate Carl remarked matter-of-factly from his bed, where he lay reading.

  “But—” Marjorie began.

  Carl lowered his book, looked at Marjorie stonily. “He doesn't.”

  “Not until now,” Marjorie said resolutely, taking Richard by the arm and drawing him out of the room after her.

  “But—”

  “I'll have him back after our date “ Marjorie said.

  ~ * ~

  “Jesus,” Carl said from the front seat. “We need gasoline.”

  “We can't stop,” Marjorie said.

  “We have to.”

  The statement hung in the air between them; Marjorie listened to the hard roll of the tires against the pavement. “Keep going.”

  Carl became suddenly frantic; holding the wheel hard with one hand, he turned around and stared into Marjorie's face. “The fucking gauge is on E! If we don't stop, we'll run out of gas!”

  Marjorie waited until Carl had turned around and was paying attention to the road again. She leaned over the front seat and looked at the gauge.

  It was on E.

  “All right,” she said. “Find a station with a self-serve. You'll have to keep the attendant away from the car. I'll pump the gas. I'll yell the amount to you and you pay him.” She put her hand on Carl's shoulder. “You hear me?”

  He looked like he was going to hyperventilate, but he said, “Yes.”

  They found a station a mile and a half later. Carl pulled the Dodge Aries hard into the island, stopping it in front of a self-service pump. Already the attendant, a lanky boy in a grease-monkey's suit, was rising from his chair inside the pay booth and walking out to greet them.

  “Keep driving!” Marjorie yelled. “Go on!”

  Carl keyed the engine back to life, threw the sedan into gear and left rubber pulling out of the island. The lanky attendant stood staring after them, hands at his sides.

  Barely back on the road, the car began to sputter.

  “Shit!” Carl shouted. “Shit! Shit!”

  He threw the car into reverse, angled it back into the station. “What are you doing!” Marjorie yelled, seeing the attendant still standing outside his booth, regarding them.

  “Just get the gas!” Carl hissed, braking the car abruptly at the pump they had just left.

  Carl bolted from the car and ran toward the attendant, who had started toward them. Marjorie watched Carl waving his arms, motioning the attendant back toward the booth. The lanky boy hesitated, looked out at the Aries with curiosity, then let Carl take him by the arm and steer him inside.

  Marjorie threw open the back door of the car and yanked the gas nozzle from its mooring. She twisted the gas cap off, shoved the nozzle into the tank and flipped the switch on the pump. Nothing happened. She looked back helplessly toward the booth; Carl was gesturing wildly at the attendant, keeping his attention away from the car.

  Marjorie flipped the switch up and down. There was a hollow click within the pump, but the numbers did not relay back to zero and no gas flowed when she pulled the lever on the nozzle.

  She studied the pump furiously, looking for instructions, but there weren't any.

  “I've got it!” Carl yelled from the pay booth. He had a desperate, frozen smile on his face. He held up a twenty dollar bill for Marjorie to see, then shoved it at the lanky attendant, who was craning his neck to see what Marjorie was doing. “You have to pay first!”

  The attendant took the money, turned away from Carl, did something at his cash register.

  The pump clicked back to zero, and, when Marjorie pulled the lever on the nozzle, gas flowed into the tank.

  “Come on, come on,” Marjorie said. The gas seemed to flow at a snail's pace. In the pay booth, Carl was engaging the lanky attendant in a furious conversation. The attendant nodded distractedly, his attention focused on Marjorie again. Suddenly he smiled and winked.

  “Jesus,” Marjorie said, turning away from him.

  The handle on the nozzle shut down. Marjorie pumped gas again until it shut down again. The tank was full. She flipped the switch on the pump off, jammed the nozzle back into its mooring and twisted the gas cap back on.

  “Finished!” she called out to Carl, with false brightness. She yanked open the back door of the car and got in.

  A moment later Carl appeared, running to the driver's side of the car and getting in. He fumbled in the ignition for the keys, cursed when they weren't there, and fished in his pants pocket for them.

  There was a tap on Marjorie's window.

  Jumping, her eyes going wide, she turned to see the lanky attendant staring in at her, smiling.

  “Forgot your change,” he said, his eyes going over her as if she was undressed.

  “Shit! Carl!” Marjorie said.

  The attendant's eyes wandered to Richard. “Wha—”

  Shouting, Carl found the keys to the car, and as they roared off, Richard's head crackling, Marjorie looked back to see the attendant staring after them, mouth open, the dropped change at his feet.

  ~ * ~

  Over the next weeks she began to know him. Everything they did was at her urging, sometimes by the force of her will. But soon, Richard came to accept their outings, even to look forward to them. She could feel him rising minutely from shell, opening to her and a great motherly spring of passion, bottomless, was welling within her and she discovered to her surprise, turning to love.

  It was on their third date that she tried to kiss him, turning to his full long face as the credits rolled on a movie and the house lights begin to go up. He met her eyes, and a spark she knew was hers alone was shining back there in the depths. Suddenly, she leaned forward, closing her eyes, and tried to meet his lips. But his face had pulled back, with a look of such terror or loathing that she was suddenly afraid until he abruptly moved his face toward her, his eyes hooded and brushed her lips with his own.

  “No, “he whispered and she realized he was speaking not to her but to himself.

  ~ * ~

  Carl drove very fast for the next hour. The night turned cloudy. Finally, as a few wet pellets of rain began to hit the windshield, a tension broke and Carl eased his foot off the pedal.

  Suddenly, he began to cry.

  “We'll never get there in time!” he wailed.

  “Just drive,” Marjorie said, noting with alarm that Carl had taken his foot all the way off the accelerator and that the car was slowing to a stop. Behind them, a truck flashed its lights, pulled around them with a roar, blaring its horn angrily.

  “Drive, Carl,” Marjorie repeated.

  He turned around in the seat, panic and despair etching his features. “Why?” he said. “Do you really think they'll be able to stop it?”

  “We don't have a second choice.” She began to climb over the seat next to him. “Get in the back.”

  He sat unmoving in the driver'
s seat, weeping, his face in his hands. Marjorie pulled at him, trying to cajole him into the back seat, but he wouldn't move.

  “I won't go back there with him!” he said hysterically, fighting her when she tried to force him with her hands.

  “Then slide under me,” she said harshly, trying to keep her own panic from surfacing.

  In the back seat, Richard moaned. His head was larger now, wedged up between the window and the shelf beneath it, conforming slightly to the plane of the glass. Marjorie had the feeling that if she put her hand on it now, it would disappear magically into the hard purpled flesh and not come out again. Thin red veins of fire moved over the surface, flashed to tiny, brilliant points.

  “Move!” Marjorie ordered, and now, finally, Carl slid across the seat to the passenger side as she threw herself over him, under the wheel, and jammed her foot on the accelerator pedal, throwing them forward.

  A truck coming up fast on them flashed its brights, honked, swerved hard around them, passing close, but she ignored it. For the next half hour she drove in the left lane, with her foot flooring the gas.

  ~ * ~

  Carl sat unexpectedly with her in the cafeteria one day. He was short and solemn, sometimes nervous, with dark hair, a physics major. “I don't think you should see Richard anymore,” he said.

  “I don't remember asking you.”

  “There's a lot you don't know about him,” Carl said “He's a genius.”

  “I know that. I don't care.”

  “No, I don't think you understand. He really is a genius. His IQ is the highest ever recorded. And the Defense Department wants him badly.”

  When Marjorie didn't respond, he said, “I was picked to be his roommate.”

  “Picked? You mean you're a spy for the Pentagon?”

  Carl shrugged. “It's a scholarship thing.”

  “You're supposed to soften Richard up so he'll go to the Defense Department when he's through here. My God are you the best they can do?”

  Carl reddened slightly. “They want to keep it low-key. I’m supposed to take care of him. There's a research facility eight hours east of here where they've studied Richard closely and where they want him to work. If I can convince him to do physics there, that's fine. If not, I get a college education and Richard does what he wants.”

  “You're a pimp for the government.”

  Carl ignored her anger. “Like I said, I don't think you should be seeing him.”

  “Because I’m distracting him from what the military wants?”

  “Because it’s not good for either of you.” Carl leaned forward, over his food tray “Look,” he said lowering his voice, “let's just say he's not going to be able to give you what you want.”

  Marjorie felt anger rising. “What do you mean?”

  “He....” Carl began, and then he started again. “He’ll never love you.”

  Marjorie felt herself wanting to hit him.

  “Listen,” Carl said “they've done a lot of tests on Richard ever since he was little. Besides his astounding IQ, he has an incredible amount of self-absorption. He literally lives inside himself. That's why he's been able to solve such difficult problems in physics.”

  “I’m in love with him.”

  “But he'll never love you. And that's what you need isn't it? You won't get that from him, Marjorie.” He looked straight into her, his eyes hardening. “You're a strong girl but you can't make him love you.”

  “What are you, a pimp and a psychologist?”

  Carl looked down at his tray. “The Defense Department did a background check on you. You were....” He reddened with embarrassment. “You were abused as a child. You spent some time with a therapist. The reports say you're starved for affection, and obsessive in your pursuit of it.”

  “You bastard,” Marjorie said

  “In a way you're a lot like Richard. The psychologists say something bad happened to him when he was young, only he overcompensated in the other direction. He's incapable of loving anyone, because he's afraid of being hurt.” Again, he looked straight at her. “He's obsessed with something too, Marjorie and its leading to marvelous discoveries. The government doesn't want that jeopardized”

  “I won't stop seeing him.”

  “But—”

  She got up, pushing Carl tray onto his lap as she left.

  Eventually, she passed the truck that had winged them. The driver recognized them, tried to block them by pulling out in front, but Marjorie jerked the wheel hard right and flew past him, ignoring his lights and horn. In the seat next to her, Carl had lapsed into shocked immobility, hunched down against the right door, eyes closed, shivering.

  It occurred to Marjorie that she didn't know where to get off the highway, couldn't remember the name of the town where the research facility was. For a moment, the panic that had seized and disabled Carl caught hold of her, tried to bring her to a screeching halt. But she fought it back, suddenly remembering the name, and concentrated on the dark road pulling beneath them, the black starry sky, their essential flight.

  She looked in the rear-view mirror, saw Richard's head huge in the back, pulsing out as she watched it, filling half the seat, nearly filling the rear-view mirror. He moaned, a tiny, constricted sound that seemed to come from a separate place. His mouth had become very small, along with his eyes, turned inward, lost in the great mass of that head, tiny insignificant appendages in what he had become, his eyes, his mouth, like appendixes, no longer needed for converse with this world.

  She pushed everything from her mind but flight, calming her hands on the wheel, willing her foot to stay pressed to the accelerator, watching the night rush by....

  ~ * ~

  Marjorie and Richard’s next date started as usual, with a movie and then pizza. But this time she steered him to the bar next to the pizza parlor, sitting with him in a dark corner booth under a dim amber light. Carl followed as always, coming into the bar behind them, sitting four tables away, but she ignored them.

  She got Richard to drink beer. He was not used to drinking, and after a second mug his face, all long, solemn angles in the bare light, softened perceptibly. His deep, huge eyes, which often watched her but, she felt, seldom looked at her, seemed to draw his mind to the front. He almost seemed to be staring at her. A slight fleshy smile touched his lips, and for a moment she shivered reaching her hand out to brush his errant long lock of hair back from his forehead.

  I love you, Richard” she said

  He reached his hand out tentatively to cover hers on the table, then suddenly drew it away taking his beer mug and bringing it to his lips, finishing it. When his hand left the mug it rested not on her hand, but beside it on the table.

  “I understand,“ he said. His voice was close to her and yet distant, and though he leaned in to her, she felt that he was still beyond her, on his own island, standing at the shore now, perhaps, but still landlocked. His eyes were fierce, distant, beautiful brown lamps.

  An ache rose in her so strong she suddenly wanted to cry. She saw herself in those eyes, her own aloneness, and wanted more desperately than she had ever wanted anything for him to mirror her love.

  “Tell me what happened to you,” she whispered, afraid of him, but wanting to pull his long sad soft head to her breast and stroke his hair, tell him everything was all right that his loneliness, and her own, was over.

  He leaned closer, the lamps moving with him, distant hot beacons infinitely clear. “One day when I was three years old,” he said, his hand moving farther away from hers on the table, until it fell into his lap, I tripped on a toy by the coffee table in my mother's living room. I remember this very clearly, struggling for balance. I began to fall and reached for support, grabbing a knick-knack from the top of the table, and pulling it toward me. I fell, dropping the knick-knack on the floor, and it broke. I began to cry and then my mother came into the room. She saw the broken knick-knack, and she slapped me.”

  Though his hand had pulled from her, his eyes were still
on her. She realized his hand was back on the table, groping for more beer. She poured what remained in her own mug into his and watched him drink it.

  He put the empty mug down. At that instant, at the age of three, I vowed I would find a way so that no one could ever hurt me again.”

  He smiled, a distant, wan gesture. He talked as if in pleasant recollection, to a looking glass or empty room. “In the 17th Century George Berkeley came nearest the idea. Esse est percepi, he said `To be is to be perceived.' He stated that material objects do not exist without the mind, but that since material objects do exist, they must be manifestations of the mind of God.”

  He turned his eyes on her, the lamps as close as they had ever been, and said, “You see, physics is the way to the answer. I’m very close, now.' Again the wan, knowing smile. “Carl and his research facility, they think that it can be controlled.”

  Suddenly he became mute; she saw that as close as he had come to her, again was he that far beyond her. His hands lay like flat, dead things in his lap, and his eyes were blank, controlled empty orbs.

  “You're going to love me,” Marjorie said to him.

  “I won't,” he said a whisper, and when she looked at his hands again they were alive, and trembling.

  ~ * ~

  Forty minutes later a police cruiser, siren wailing, red and white lights flashing madly, pulled out behind them from a cul-de-sac next to the highway.

  She knew she could not outrun the police in the Dodge. But still she kept the Aries floored, reaching ninety, hoping that somehow the cop driver would give up or fly off the road or go away.

  But he didn't. He stayed patiently behind for five minutes, pacing them, pushing his siren to make her understand that she had to slow down. She could see him in her outside mirror, his angry features in his flashing lights, his partner next to him speaking into his radio.

  ~ * ~

  After another beer, she took Richard back to his room. He seemed very drunk when she led him to the bed, and he made no protest when she removed his shirt and began to kiss him.

  She lay him back, and soon she had taken off her clothes and the rest of Richard's and had straddled him, watching the faraway look on his features as she brought him to hardness and guided him into her. It seemed as she arched tight above him, the advent of the fulfillment of her dreams, the attainment of her secret wishes.