Fragments

by James F. David

Ralph’s door was open and Wes found him sitting on the floor staring at a pile of socks. The socks were sorted, and the pairs folded together. Ralph had sorted the socks into three piles, but the piles were mixtures of colors and styles, and Wes could see no pattern. Ralph was looking at the socks with a vacant stare. Elizabeth had described him as having only two emotions, but neither of them was showing here.

  “Ralph?”

  He turned to Wes and the blank look suddenly reshaped itself into a huge grin.

  “Hi Wes. Did ya come to say goodnight? It’s not my bedtime yet, is it?”

  “Ralph,” Wes broke in. “I just came to thank you for helping me with my experiment.”

  Ralph grinned a little wider. “You’re welcome. Thanks for the ice cream.”

  “You’re welcome, Ralph. Goodnight.”

  Ralph said goodnight and then turned back to his pile of socks, his face immediately going blank.

  Daphne’s room was next door to Ralph’s and Wes walked to it, shaking his head, realizing he didn’t understand Ralph any more than he did Elizabeth. Still thinking about Ralph, Wes opened Daphne’s door and walked in, stopping in shock. Daphne was topless, leaning over her dresser, looking in a drawer. She shrieked, grabbing a nightgown and covering herself.

  Shocked and embarrassed, he backed out the door, turning toward the stairs, not sure of what to do. He started walking but then turned back and closed the door. Wes went down the stairs, trying to get the image out of his mind. Elizabeth appeared at the bottom as he came down.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded.

  “Daphne . . .” Wes began, but was too embarrassed to finish.

  Suddenly Daphne burst out of her room, wearing her nightgown, and raced down the stairs, pushing between Wes and Elizabeth. She was crying.

  “What did you do to her?” Elizabeth asked accusingly. Without waiting for an answer, Elizabeth followed Daphne to the living room. Wes trailed along sheepishly.

  Daphne was playing the piano, but it was angry pounding, not her usual sweet melodies. When Elizabeth put her hand on Daphne’s shoulder, she shrugged it off, pounding even harder, and then running toward the kitchen. A few seconds later they heard the back door slam.

  “You better go after her,” Wes said.

  “Tell me what happened!” Elizabeth insisted.

  “I went to thank her, like you wanted me to. She was in her room changing—she didn’t have all her clothes on.”

  “Didn’t you knock?”

  “I didn’t think—”

  “You violated her privacy!”

  “It was an accident!”

  “Would you walk into my room without knocking?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why treat Daphne with less respect, unless you don’t quite see her as human.”

  “I never said that! I just wasn’t thinking.”

  “The savants aren’t equipment. They’re people with feelings that include shame and embarrassment. If Daphne is going to continue in this experiment you are going to respect her privacy. Is that clear?”

  “Don’t lecture me.”

  “Then don’t act like an ass.”

  Opening his mouth to respond, he closed it with a snap. He knew he wouldn’t be allowed to finish a sentence.

  “I’ll find Daphne and see how much damage has been done,” Elizabeth said.

  Wes hoped she was exaggerating. If Daphne was so upset that she would have to leave, the whole project was in danger. The image of naked Daphne bending over her dresser came back and he quickly forced it away. Even so, he now understood why the fraternity brothers had been staring at her, and it gave him one more thing to worry about.

  The house Wes had secured for the project was leased from the national office of a fraternity. The local chapter had run into disciplinary problems and been shut down for a year as punishment. Wes’s money made the payments and made sure the fraternity brothers would have a place when the suspension was over. The house sat on a large lot with an alley behind it and a separate garage. The house had been leased furnished, and the excess furniture moved into the garage to make space for Wes’s experimental equipment. The garage was built in the same Colonial style as the house, with a small cupola on top. There were windows on one side, a small door facing the house, and large double garage doors that opened out to the alley. It was in this garage that Elizabeth found Daphne.

  Elizabeth turned the garage light on and found Daphne huddled on one end of a couch, her arms wrapped around her legs, holding her knees to her chest. Her face was red and puffy.

  Elizabeth walked to the far end of the couch and sat quietly with Daphne, letting her adjust to Elizabeth’s presence. After a few minutes she empathized with her.

  “I know what happened. You must have been embarrassed.”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe a little afraid?”

  Daphne didn’t answer.

  “He promised to knock from now on.”

  “Will he take away my piano?”

  “Wes won’t punish you. It was his fault. You did nothing wrong. He just didn’t know the rules about knocking. Everyone will knock. I promise.”

  “What if they forget?”

  “Then we’ll have to punish them, not you.” Elizabeth touched Daphne’s shoulder, and this time it wasn’t brushed away. “Will you come back to the house now?”

  “No. I like it here.”

  “Will you come back soon?”

  “I like it here.”

  “Don’t stay much longer, Daphne.”

  Elizabeth left Daphne in the garage but watched the door from the kitchen window. Fifteen minutes later Daphne came out of the garage and walked straight through the kitchen to the piano. She played until long after the others had gone to bed.

  6

  ARCHIE

  The state took Archie from his mother when he was two. He was too young to remember her, and the only mementos of those first horrible years were the scars on his back from cigarette burns, and scars on his feet where she had scalded them in a bath. The next six years were a series of foster homes for Archie, and then the move to the state institution. He liked it there. No one beat him, or teased him because of his orange hair or his buck teeth. There was always food to eat, there were treats between meals if you minded the rules, and there was something under the tree for everyone at Christmas. Sometimes on holidays he felt bad, because when the visitors came there was never anyone just for him. Those without family were grouped together and kept out of the way. Sometimes church people would come and visit the lonelies, but Archie never liked it. He knew they came out of pity and not love.

  Archie knew a lot more than people gave him credit for but no one ever cared to find out so he spent his childhood as an anonymous charge of the state, warehoused with others of his kind. He learned early that it was easier to be like everyone else in the institution, and he adopted the mannerisms of the others, hiding his special talent. So it was that Archie was sixteen before they discovered he wasn’t like the others, and they wouldn’t have discovered it then if it hadn’t been for a broken toilet.

  At nights an attendant was always stationed in the hall to make sure no one wandered out of the wards. The attendants mostly read or watched TV, but one night an attendant brought a jigsaw puzzle to work. He spread it out on a card table and sat watching TV, drinking Coke, and working the puzzle. That was the night Archie got up to go to the bathroom. The attendant told Archie to be quick about it, relieved that Archie wasn’t one of those who needed to be wiped. In the bathroom Archie noticed one of the toilet handles was stuck down and water was spilling over the sides. When Archie came back he told the attendant.

  “Damn, why does this always happen on my shift. Well, what are you staring at? Get back to bed!”

  The attendant left Archie standing and stomped off to the bathroom. The toilet was easily fixed but the water took thirty minutes to clean up. When he came back to his station he was stunned to find the puz
zle completed. It was a picture of running horses in a field with a rainbow in the background. There were five hundred pieces and the attendant had left it with only about half of the outside edges put together. He reasoned it had to be some kind of joke, but who could put a puzzle together that fast? Eventually the attendant realized the only one near the puzzle had been one of the retarded kids—the one named Archie. The attendant found Archie asleep in his bed and stood watching him. Even in the dark his orange hair looked bright, and his big teeth were poking between his lips. The attendant couldn’t believe this clownish retard had solved the puzzle.

  He told the morning shift about the puzzle, but they were as skeptical as he. By midmorning it was the talk of the institution and reached Dr. Carmen Hilton. At lunch she went shopping and came back with a new puzzle. Not quite believing the story she selected a 250-piece puzzle. It was a picture of hot-air balloons floating up out of a meadow. She set up a card table and poured the pieces out, spreading them evenly; then she invited Archie over.

  “Can you put this together for me, Archie?”

  Without a word Archie bent over the table until his face was a few inches from the surface and stared at the puzzle. Then he reached out and picked up two pieces with straight edges, put them together, and set them to his left. Then he scanned the table from about a foot away and picked up a third piece and added it to the first two. Picking up speed, Archie worked quickly, putting the straight edges together. With barely a pause, and never an error, the frame was quickly completed. Then, with another short pause, he began fitting pieces to the outside edges. Only a handful of times did a selected piece not fit. As he worked, with his nose skimming the surface, the staff gathered, whispering and pointing in amazement. Ten minutes later he fit the final piece into the puzzle.

  As if Archie’s speed weren’t enough, two other oddities stood out. Never once did Archie look at the box top to match the colors of the pieces to their location on the box. Experienced jigsaw-puzzle enthusiasts knew this magnified the difficulty. The other oddity was that as the picture began to emerge, it was upside down.

  The next day all three of the staff psychologists gathered with a 750-piece puzzle. It was a picture of a harbor filled with fishing boats. Just after lunch they took Archie from making a belt in his occupational-therapy class, and asked him to put the puzzle together. Archie stared for a full minute and then picked up two straight edges and put them together. Then, just as before, with few errors, he systematically put one piece at a time into the puzzle until the harbor and its boats emerged. The puzzle took twenty-five minutes and this time was right side up.

  Archie went back to his belt and the amazed psychologists retired to an office for discussion. Archie had been tested before, but he had never shown such ability, and they were somewhat embarrassed that they had missed it. But Dr. Hilton correctly pointed out that Archie had been tested with behavior-oriented tests designed for the educable mentally retarded. Archie had never really been given a challenge like the puzzles. Besides, there might be another reason the staff missed his talent, she pointed out. Archie’s posture when solving puzzles suggested that he was visually impaired.

  That afternoon Dr. Hilton tested Archie with a standard intelligence test. Archie performed miserably on the verbal and quantitative portions, except for pattern recognition. Using blocks colored red, white, or half red or white, Archie was able to order them into required patterns with blinding speed, his nose skimming the table.

  The next morning Dr. Hilton took Archie to an optometrist and had Archie examined—he needed glasses. While they waited for the lenses, Dr. Hilton searched for a pair of frames that went with Archie’s face. It was the hardest thing she had ever done. Archie was tall and skinny with orange hair over most of his body. He was balding at an early age and what was left of his orange hair was in three tufts: two on either side and one on the top of his head. His buck teeth protruded noticeably, and were seldom covered by his lips. Everything Dr. Hilton put on his face made him look more like a clown. Archie himself was little help.

  “Do you like these, Archie?” Dr. Hilton would say after putting a pair on him. “Yes,” he would say after looking in the mirror, and then he would take them off and pick up another pair, twirling them around on his finger. Exasperated, Dr. Hilton tried pair after pair, always getting the same “Yes,” and off the glasses would come. Dr. Hilton was about to settle for a plain black frame when the assistant brought out another set of samples.

  “These are children’s frames. He might like these better.”

  The frames came in colors and with imprinted designs. Most were too gaudy for Archie’s face, but Dr. Hilton began sorting through them. Suddenly Archie dropped the pair he was playing with and picked up a blue pair of frames and put them on. Dr. Hilton looked in the mirror to see Archie smiling at himself. Each side of the bright blue frames was topped with a relief of Mickey Mouse.

  “No, Archie. Those look silly.”

  “They’re actually sunglass frames,” the attendant added.

  Dr. Hilton took off the Mickey Mouse frames and put on a deep blue pair.

  “If you like blue, these would look better,” she said.

  Archie took off Dr. Hilton’s frames and put the Mickey Mouse frames back on and smiled at himself in the mirror again. Dr. Hilton tried again, but Archie returned once more to the Mickey Mouse frames. She hated the frames—it made Archie more of a spectacle—but when they left Archie was wearing the Mickey Mouse frames.

  That afternoon the ward looked like a psychologists’ convention. The word had spread and their colleagues from other institutions had gathered to witness Archie’s ability. His Mickey Mouse frames had garnered titters from the psychologists and staff, but the other patients either ignored them or showed delight. Archie acknowledged neither response.

  They started with a five-hundred-piece puzzle. Archie worked in his usual fashion, but without putting his nose down to the surface. The puzzle was completed in fifteen minutes, this time upside down. The psychologists buzzed in excitement. The next puzzle was a special one made up of swirling red and white colors. There were no corners to use as anchors and the swirling red and white gave few color cues. Archie completed it in twelve minutes. When he was done they brought out a box nearly overflowing with puzzle pieces and poured it on a bigger table. It was three puzzles mixed together. Archie worked nonstop for fifty minutes and completed all three puzzles. Two were finished upside down. Archie was thanked, given a Three Musketeers candy bar, and sent off with an attendant. The psychologists retired to a conference room to discuss his case. They all agreed that it was fascinating, but because of Archie’s other poor skills no change in his treatment, or his residence, was warranted. That night after dinner Dr. Hilton went back to the institution to see Archie. He was in his pajamas and sitting in the recreation room watching TV. Some of the others said hello to Dr. Hilton and then went back to watching the TV. Archie never looked up.

  “Archie? Archie, stop watching TV for a second.”

  Archie turned toward her, his Mickey Mouse glasses perched on his nose, his buck teeth protruding and orange puffs of hair framing his face. Dr. Hilton wanted to talk to him, to ask him how he did what he did, and what other secrets were hidden somewhere inside of his clown head. But the blank stare told her there wasn’t enough self-awareness for Archie to answer her questions even if Archie was capable of introspection. Instead, Dr. Hilton dug in her purse and pulled out an old Rubik’s Cube she had never been able to solve. Archie’s head was drifting back toward the TV, so Dr. Hilton hurried to keep his limited attention.

  “Archie? Archie, look at me. This is a puzzle too. It’s a different puzzle. It works like this.” Dr. Hilton twisted the puzzle a few times to show Archie how it worked. “You have to get all the colors together. Get all the yellow ones on one side, all the green ones on one side, all the blue ones on one side, and so on. Do you understand?”

  Archie never answered; he just began twisting the c
ube randomly. Dr. Hilton watched him for a few minutes but saw no pattern or progress. When she left he was still twisting the puzzle. Dr. Hilton thought a lot about Archie that night. The next morning when she came to work the solved cube was on her desk. That morning she watched Archie solve a bewildering variety of puzzles brought in by the psychologists and the staff. Nothing stymied Archie as long as it was a spatial task. After dinner Dr. Hilton returned with a new idea. She dumped a new puzzle on the table and then turned all of the pieces facedown so that none of the colors showed. Archie solved it as easily as he did those with the picture showing. That next morning Dr. Hilton called her old college friend Dr. Wes Martin. Dr. Martin came to visit, and a few months later Elizabeth Foxworth came to visit too. A month later Archie’s things were packed and he took the first plane ride of his life, to Oregon.

  7

  CHURCH

  Someone was shaking the bed. It was the gentle rhythmic kind of shaking someone uses when they want to wake you up, but Wes would have none of it. He had been up late the night before listening to Daphne play. Only after he heard her thump up the stairs to bed could he go to sleep. Even then he lay awake worrying whether Daphne would agree to continue in the experiment. Now someone was ending the little sleep he got last night. It seemed like a bad dream, but when Wes heard the voice he knew it was a nightmare.

  “Wes? Wes? It’s me, Ralph. It’s time to get up.”

  Wes was confused and opened his eyes long enough to check the clock.

  “It’s only six-thirty, now get out of here, Ralph,” Wes mumbled, and then in a louder voice added, “I mean it, Ralph, get out and stay out.” Wes waved his hand at Ralph in dismissal and then rolled over, burying his head under his pillow.

  “It’s time to get up, Wes,” Ralph persisted. “We’ll be late.”

  Wes’s temper flared and he rolled over, flinging his pillow blindly. The pillow hit the wall by the door and fell to the floor with a soft thud. When the blur of sleep cleared from his eyes he saw Ralph staring at him with his big loose lips curved up in a grin.