Tim backed away another step. His face was redder, his jaw out, and he breathed fast, through his nose. Someone mumbled, “Take it easy.” I think that was Jack.
“Get at the end of the line,” I said sternly.
“They’re nothing,” Tim answered in a rush and then shut up.
“They don’t think so. They think you’re nothing.”
Tim pointed a thick finger at Jack. “Everybody in the Glass Tower is a Glasshole. Not just him. He doesn’t have his own name.” He pointed to Jonathan. “All the programmers are Softheads.”
“He’s The Glasshole. He’s The Softhead. Are you The Nerd?”
Tim’s jaw trembled. “Yes,” he stammered.
“No,” I was sorrowful. “The Nerd is Andy. He’s the Geek Genius, the head nerd. The Nerd of nerds. You’re replaceable. You’re a worker bee, a nothing.”
Tim spoke very very softly—a hunted whisper. “They need me.”
“They don’t think so.”
From behind me, Andy said, “Yes, we do.” Jack also said something encouraging.
“Shut up,” I told them without looking. I advanced on Tim. He was a few inches shorter than me and much wider. We were almost nose-to-nose. His frantic, noisy breathing sounded like the sniffling of a weepy child. There was a streak of red in his left eye, a burst blood vessel. A drop of sweat from his receding hairline trailed down, heading for his nose. “They’re being kind,” I told him. “Kind to the nerd. Kind to the big baby nerd.”
Tim put his fat palms on my chest and shoved me. Martha, I think, gasped. I stumbled back. Tim shouted, “They’re nothing!” He shuffled sideways, almost as if he were dancing, and screamed, “I make the machines! They’re nothing! They got nothing without me. Me! I’m the one! He’s—” Tim, his face bright red, slid and hopped up to Andy. “He’s not a genius! Without me, he’s a retard!” He skipped down the startled line and stuck a finger at Jonathan. “Softhead!” he tried to laugh scornfully, but the sound was more like a choke. “If he was any good he’d be at Nintendo! I cleaned up the protocols for him. You dumb fuck,” he added and then skipped backwards.
“So the tribe dies without you,” I said.
“I’m the flicking hunter. I get the meat.” Tim banged his thick hands together. They made a shattering sound, like the report of a gun. “They die without me.”
There was an embarrassed silence. I allowed it to settle until we could all hear Tim’s noisy breathing and the soft lapping of the pond against the rowboats docked outside our cabin. “Make a new line. You’re at the head since you’ve had the courage to name yourself.” I walked over and touched him on both shoulders as if I were knighting him. He straightened. “You are the Hunter.”
Thus, I said, inspired by Tim’s example, we would rechristen the tribe. Jonathan, stung by Tim’s attack, immediately argued that he was the Scout, since he checked the proposed machine designs by running simulations on Black Dragon. The others, without much enthusiasm, nodded. Tim, his face returning to his usual florid color instead of cardiac arrest red, said nothing.
I announced that a new title had to be accepted by the previously named, and in turn, by each of the newly baptized. “So it’s up to you,” I said to Tim. “Is Jonathan the Scout?”
Emboldened by his triumph, Tim said, “No. Andy’s the Scout. He sees what’s ahead and I go and get it.”
I ordered Tim and Jonathan into one of the boats. I told them to row to the east shore, sit in the meadow and discuss it. We would wait for them on our shore and think about what we thought our names should be.
We followed them outside and watched as they traveled across. There was some snickering because they weren’t very good at it, moving in a zigzag. Gould called, “If you don’t row together, you’ll sink together.”
Martha arranged herself on the ground to be in the sun. Jack asked if he could fetch a rod from the hotel and do some casting. “No,” I said. Andy asked if he was the Scout, as Tim had said. “No,” I said. “He doesn’t get to name you.”
“Who does?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet,” I answered.
Stick maneuvered by my side and mumbled, “This could take all day.”
“And all night,” I said.
“Really we’re here to relax,” he continued in a whisper.
“You asked me to do this. You and Edgar said you were interested in what I would come up with. Have you changed your mind?”
“Well …” He gestured for me to walk with him, away from the others. Although pretending not to be, they were aware of us.
I raised my voice. “If you have something to say, Prince, say it so everybody can hear.”
Halley and Martha twisted to look. Jack, standing under a broad maple for shade, turned our way. Andy was on the cabin porch, behind Stick, but listening. Gould and Hanson were over by the rowboats, holding oars; they weren’t facing us, but their backs were stiff and they were quiet.
Stick snorted. The sun was on his lined gaunt face, his prominent forehead shadowing his eyes. He put his hands in the same Bermuda shorts he had worn yesterday to the pool. “Okay,” he mumbled. “Forget it.”
“No,” I persisted in a loud annoyed tone. “Everybody here has been told you put me in authority. If that’s not true, then this is even more of a farce than you say it is—”
“I didn’t say it was a farce,” he complained. He raised his hand. “Enough. I made a mistake.”
“I want you to tell everyone what’s on your mind. Do you think I’m wasting your time?”
“I’m disappointed,” he said, taking his hands out of his pockets, turning away to the porch. He noticed Andy staring at him. Stick frowned, put a sandal on the cabin’s granite step, and rocked on the foot. “Disappointed by what?”
Stick took a long breath. He exhaled it as a sigh. “Doesn’t seem very original, that’s all.” He kicked the step with his heel, walked up to the porch, and sat on its banister.
“Original?” I was openly scornful. “What do you know about psychology? Your idea of psychology is to promise people raises.”
It was Hanson (I think, my back was to him) who couldn’t help but laugh—a very abbreviated laugh to be sure.
“I can cancel this,” Stick said, not in a threatening tone, an idle comment.
“Then we can name you Quitter,” I said. “Or maybe Welcher. How about Indian Giver?”
“I don’t believe in it, that’s all.”
“Oh!” I opened my arms and swiveled a half turn as I spoke each sentence, eventually taking them all in. “You don’t believe in it. So it must be worthless. There’s no doubt! If you don’t believe it, who will?” I appeared to have lost control.
“Nobody believes in it.” Stick got calmer in answer to my show of temper. He swung a leg, his leather sandal brushing the porch deck. He nodded toward the far shore. “We can humor poor Tim and call him Hunter, but we all know he’s …” Stick paused. He turned from the meadow to look at us. He saw me, of course, arms still out, sneering at him, but-he also realized the group was listening.
“He’s what?” I demanded. “Garbage? Something you can throw out whenever you want?”
“No, of course not. Don’t play games. I never said anything like that.” Stick stood up, stretched. “As long as we’re waiting by the pond, let’s take advantage of it. Jack, go ahead and get a rod. I’ll get towels and—”
“Scared to finish the conversation, aren’t you?” I asked. Stick’s thin lips disappeared altogether. He had come down to the granite step to give his orders and got stuck there.
“Make up your mind, Prince,” I said. “Who’s in charge? You told them I was. You promised them I was. Are you taking it back? Were you lying?”
Abruptly, Stick dropped his head in mock surrender and laughed. “Okay, you’re right. In for a penny, in for a pound.” He sat down on the step. “I apologize, Witch Doctor.” He was positively charming. “You’re in charge.”
“Good. Then finish your se
ntence. Tim is … what? If he’s not the Hunter, what is he?”
That sustained the tension he wanted to slacken. Stick glanced at Halley, saw only an impassive young woman, squinted at the sky and appeared to think. “He’s a nerd,” he said at last. No one laughed. Stick was surprised. After a moment of awkward silence, he tried a laugh, but it was more of a cackle. “I’m joking,” he added, lamely.
“Maybe that’s what we’ll call you,” I answered. “The Joker.”
A heavy silence followed. Human silence, that is. A loon called across the pond. Breezes rustled the maple above Jack’s head and rippled the water. I moved to the step, used it to help stretch my tight hamstring, and then sat down next to Stick. He stared at his sandals, smoothing his slick hair with both hands. I kept my eyes on him until he met them. His were dead, to prove to me that I hadn’t hurt him. Eventually, Gould and Hanson resumed their discussion of proper rowing technique in low voices. Martha groaned, rolled on her side, and said to Halley, “I know what I want my name to be.”
Halley smiled. She appeared completely at ease. “What’s that?”
“Mama Cass.”
“Oh, Martha—”
“Leech.”
“Sorry. You’re not fat, Leech.”
“I wasn’t talking about being fat, Miss—excuse it, I mean Prince Hal. I was talking about my beautiful singing voice.”
Meanwhile, Jack had idly strolled toward the porch. He asked Andy, who was backed against the cabin’s door, “Do you fish?”
“No.”
“You’d like it. Great for thinking through a problem …”
With three conversations going, I whispered into Stick’s ear in a rush, “I have to be the one to attack you. I’m acting out their secret resentments.” I looked at the others to check if anyone heard or noticed. They hadn’t.
Stick whispered, “You’re doing too good a job.”
I squeezed his shoulder. He suffered the contact, although he had to purse his lips to endure it. “Okay,” I called. “Everybody back in the cabin while we’re waiting.” There were protests—the day was sunny and mild, couldn’t we stay outside? I was stern and herded them in.
I told Martha to sit in front of the blackboard and ordered the others to face her.
“Since we’re going to have to rename everyone, maybe we’d better learn more about each other. I’m going to ask you questions, Martha. If you don’t want to answer a question, just say, ‘No,’ or, ‘No Comment,’ or, ‘Tuck off.’ If you want to answer partially, then answer partially. Understood?”
“Fuck off,” Martha said and there was long sustained laughter from everyone, including Stick.
“Okay, you’ve got the idea. How many diets have you tried, Martha?”
I had picked her because I was sure she would be facile at intimacies, even if they were mostly banal. She was. My questions merely asked for the surface of personal truth, convinced the core would be exposed anyway because of the earlier flexing of emotion. I had misbehaved, so had Tim. Our extravagance would encourage them to spend more of themselves than was typical. Martha, in fact, eventually made a deeply felt speech about the death of her father. By then, all of them had asked her questions, except, of course, for Stick.
I had moved Gould to the inquisition spot when we heard a voice calling from the pond. We rushed out to the cabin porch. Jonathan and Tim were in the rowboat, going in a circle for the most part, since Jonathan kept abandoning his oar to call, “I’m Trans …” and the rest was too faint to understand.
“He’s a transistor?” Gould asked.
Hanson yelled, “Pick up your oar or you’ll never get here!”
Eventually, they were close enough for us to hear, “I’m Translator.”
“Translator?” Martha called, openly skeptical.
“I make sure that man and machine can talk,” Jonathan explained.
Stick turned his back to the others. He rolled his eyes to show his contempt.
“The point is they worked it out,” I said.
“If I were you,” he mumbled, “I would break for lunch.”
I didn’t. I did provide lunch (prearranged to arrive in picnic baskets that were discreetly left at the head of the pond’s path to the hotel) but no break. I sent Martha across with Jonathan, returned Gould to his inquisition, and we proceeded in that manner, until all had been rechristened except for Halley, Stick, and me, and all had been questioned but for me and Stick. The sun crossed above and behind the cabin. The northern part of Green Mountain pond was dyed amber by the late afternoon sun when I sent Halley across to be named by Andy—but I am getting ahead of myself.
The naming of Andy had been the one of a series of events that was important. The inquisitions and baptisms inevitably created an atmosphere of intimacy and friendliness among them. Stick’s moody withdrawal was ignored. Probably they assumed the whole day, in the end, was an unimportant exercise and that I would pay for his annoyance. They couldn’t help, however, learning that they were capable of being at ease with each other—it was Stick who couldn’t.
Martha was named Scout, since that was the true meaning of market research. Gould was named Warrior (salesmen go out into the world, after all) and he insisted Hanson accept the same name—as opposed to his earlier attempt to stand higher in the line. Hanson took Jack to the meadow and stuck the first pin in Stick by naming Jack Warrior King. He explained that Jack had to take on IBM, Toshiba, and Compaq nationally—he was the face of war Hyperion presented to the world. Halley looked at her father when we were told. The others applauded. I sent Andy off with Jack and they wounded Stick again when Jack explained he had called Andy the Creator, since without him the tribe had nothing to sell.
During Andy and Jack’s absence, Halley faced the rest of the circle and put on a performance. I should say, half a performance. In all her incarnations there was some truth. She had noticed how moved they were by Martha’s grief, and anyway I had stirred the pot about her brother the day before, so they heard a convincing speech telling of the loss of Mikey. She portrayed herself as a loving older sister with a brilliant, but impetuous brother. They heard she was shocked by the loss of his energy and optimism. There were no lies, only omissions. The battle she had fought to replace him as her fathers favorite and the lack of guilt about her victory were expunged, replaced with tearful mumbles that she should have known he would try to ski the dangerous slope. Martha hugged her and said it was crazy to blame herself. Halley erased any hint that she had helped to provoke Mikey, not only that fateful night, but over and over for years.
Halley’s choice of identity was admirable in a perverse way. In a sense, she was coming to her fathers rescue. He couldn’t even fake having a heart. By telling them of their family tragedy (the details of which were a mystery to them all) she made his lack of feeling appear to be wounded reserve. She’s not as dangerous as Stick, I thought to myself, but she’s shrewder.
Unfortunately for Halley, and for Stick, she merely succeeded in making him more uncomfortable. He didn’t want them to think of him as human. He wanted to be feared and he was clever enough to see they no longer did, at least not as long as I was present.
Copley faced the circle last, while Andy took Halley to the meadow to name her. When I asked him to move in front of the blackboard, he tried a small rebellion. “Isn’t it your turn?” he teased me.
“No, Prince.”
Stick nodded, a wan smile on his face. He walked to the front and opened his hands to show he was ready. Everybody else had sat on the floor. “Sit down,” I said.
“Sure.” He grinned to show he was a good sport. He squatted without a groan, settled on his behind and pulled both feet underneath him. “Did you hope Mike would work with you at Minotaur?” was my first question.
Stick answered without hesitation or complaint. “He wasn’t interested in computers. He was still finding himself when he had his accident.”
“Did his death have anything to do with Halley coming into the
company?”
Stick blinked at me. I don’t think this had occurred to him. His skill at using people involved only a partial ability to understand them. He could see weakness, not necessarily motivation. “Urn …” he hesitated. “Let’s see … Halley asked if there was a job—I mean, she was very qualified. She worked for Time Warner—”
“It wasn’t your idea that she come in?”
Stick scanned the others. They were fascinated. I hadn’t lied to him. I was able to act out their fantasies: be angry, ask intrusive questions, give him orders. “No,” he said. “I was glad she wanted to. But it was her idea.”
“Do you think she wanted to work with you because, with Mike gone, she needed to be closer to you?”
Martha made a sympathetic sound. I saw Jack nod to himself. I was filling in Halley’s self-portrait for them, painting her nepotistic presence in a new light.
Stick frowned, lowered his head and mumbled, “I guess …”
“And maybe she thought you needed her help?”
He looked at me from under his heavy brow. He ran his hands over his slicked-down hair. “Well … I guess Halley would know the answer to that.”
I allowed a silence. He was uncomfortable. I don’t know if he understood that his blank emotions would impress the others unfavorably. A man who was so incurious and unempathetic about his own daughter was hardly someone to run to for aid and comfort. Finally, I said, “You took a big chance with the leveraged buyout, right?”
“I don’t think it was a big—” he stopped, lowered his hands. “I’m a risk-taker.”
“You needed a first-rate marketer?”
“Always do.”
“And you were probably distracted when Mike died. It must have been hard to go to work.”
“No,” he said with the bluntness of a child.
Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil Page 79