Knack (Benjamin Brown Book 1)

by Tom Twitchel

  “Well, for one thing, Baffle and Maddy are good friends, and other than maybe you, they’re the only friends I’ve got. I know.… I know their hearts Mr. Goodturn. I probably know them better than their parents do.”

  “I’m certain that’s often true of young people. My observation is that parents so seldom take the time to listen properly.”

  “So, what I’m saying is, I didn’t like it when you said I needed to be realistic.”

  “Understood.” He nodded, his face serious.

  “But it did make me think. And I didn’t really like that either.”

  “I understand.”

  “So, I figured I need to start thinking about the hard stuff, things I don’t necessarily want to think about but should. You know? And the other thing I wanted to ask about was the guy with the gun. You said you slowed him down, but what happened to him after? When you walked him outside and down the street? How do you know he won’t be back?”

  Sighing heavily, he rubbed his hand across his chin and stared up at the stuffed hawk over the two-way mirror.

  “The answer to that question, or rather, questions, is complicated. He won’t be back. I know that with a certainty. When I walked him down the street, my intention was to ensure that he wouldn’t be back and that he wouldn’t harm anyone in the future.”

  Not knowing what to say, I just waited for him to go on.

  “I placed an instruction in his mind that anytime he had thoughts about bringing harm to someone he would slow down and stop. He would remain quiet and unmoving until those thoughts passed. I also made a second suggestion, more an erecting of a barrier, creating an obstacle that would prevent him from coming back here. Thinking about my shop or attempting to approach it would be very uncomfortable for him.”

  “Like with hypnosis? Like a post-hypnotic suggestion?” I watch TV and I read…a lot.

  “Yes, but more powerful and external. Hypnosis depends upon the internal, the subject’s own mind and psyche. What I do… What I did with him was to introduce a new pattern, a new structure that I created. It can’t unravel and can’t be undone. It’s permanent.”

  That sounded more frightening than what I had hoped to hear. And what had I hoped to hear exactly? “I gave him milk and cookies and politely asked him to give up his evil ways”?

  “He won’t hurt himself will he?” I asked.

  “No. What I did was to introduce instructions that would protect me and others. I have no desire to injure someone else, although I’m certain that gentleman had no such reservations.”

  Mr. Goodturn leaned forward in his chair and clasped his hands in front of his chest as he looked earnestly at me through his glasses.

  “Benny, what you and I can do is not new. People have had knacks as far back as recorded history, and probably before that. Have you ever heard someone say, “He’s a natural’? That phrase in the literal sense means a trait or something you are born with, that isn’t learned or developed. The genealogy of the phrase is embedded in humankind’s history. People today use it to describe an athlete’s skill or a politician’s leadership or oratory skills. In the past, it was used to describe a supernatural ability to perform unusual acts or to know things that seemed, at the time, unknowable. In that sense, you and I are naturals.”

  I realized my mouth was hanging open. I closed it, remembering Maddy’s reference to catching flies.

  “Benjamin, I’ve known about my knacks—yes, I have more than one—since I was a young man. That was a very long time ago. I’ve practiced and developed them to a point where I have control over them and can have a strong measure of confidence in the results. That also means that I have had years of experience in using them and keeping them discreetly hidden from others.”

  “Yeah, I get that. People don’t always like what they see,” I said, remembering Oso and his girlfriend in the park.

  “Yes. Exactly right. In my life, I’ve made mistakes with my knacks, and I’ve also learned a thing or two; how to be careful, and how to practice restraint. What I’m talking about here is offering to mentor you on how to use your knack.”

  “Mentor?”

  “Teach you. Help you acquire precision when you use it and help you with discernment, judgment, on how, when and where to use it. Would you like that?”

  I chewed on that for a minute. My abilities were still largely unexplored. The tricks I did on the street or in the park were really just small illusions. Easy to create and pretty simple to hide by making them seem like sleight of hand. But the telekinesis, moving stuff around, or nudging something was much less precise. It would be a good thing to be able to talk about and get instruction on both abilities. The silent speak knack I thought I would keep to myself.

  “Yes, sir. I think I would like that.”

  Leaning back in his chair again, he smiled broadly. He patted the arms of the chair as though officially stamping our agreement.

  “Good. Good. Today, let me just offer one insight that should prove helpful.”

  “Okay.”

  “There is a truth about knacks that seems incontrovertible, inescapable or consistent with all of my experiences and others.” The truth is that man must suffer to learn.”

  “What?” I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that.

  “It’s a quote from a Greek poet named Aeschylus or more accurately, a paraphrase. It means that to acquire wisdom a man must suffer, whether it is physical, mental or emotional. Without pain, a man isn’t properly disposed to learn. His natural arrogance, superstitions, prejudices or ignorance will prevent the effective acquisition of wisdom or higher knowledge.”

  It was beginning to sound a lot like school.

  My eyes must have glazed over because he shook his head and laughed at himself.

  “An old man and his words! Eschew obfuscation I always say, even though I don’t follow my own advice! What I’m explaining, Benny, and why it’s important, is that knacks often manifest when a naturally gifted person is under duress; afraid, injured or under pressure.”

  Thinking about my knacks and the moments when they first showed up, I realized that all three fit with the situations Mr. Goodturn had just described. A brief twist in my gut, “Don’t hurt me Dennis,” made me frown.

  “Do I see a moment of recognition?” Mr. Goodturn asked.

  “Uh huh. Yeah,” Did that mean whenever I got scared or hurt a new knack was going to show up? If that were the case, I’d rather skip the process and give back the ones I already had. The only knack that had shown up in less than super stressful circumstances was my ability to manipulate images and small objects. Although I had been upset when that one appeared. But I’d give that up too if it meant my leg and eye would be healed, and that my mom hadn’t left, not that her leaving had been directly responsible for any of my knacks.

  “Well, what I’m trying to say, Benny, is that when you’re feeling pressured you should try as hard as you can to be observant and careful. You will probably discover more knacks if you haven’t already. You’re a polite boy with good manners so your mom is doing her job to raise you with a moral code. But when a knack initially manifests, it can be unpredictable or obvious to observers. Sometimes, a natural can be seduced by a new skill or be clumsy when using it.”

  “Oh, I know. Mr. Goodturn, can I ask you another question?”

  “Of course.”

  “When we were talking yesterday you said you wanted to share a story about something. Is this what you were talking about?”

  Taking off his glasses to breathe on them and wipe them on his shirt, Mr. Goodturn took a moment to think about his answer. I was struck with how nearsighted he was. His eyes looked small and squinty without the ridiculously thick glasses.

  “No. The story I was going to share with you dealt with my comment about your friends. My ill-advised counsel to be “realistic,” maybe it’s better to forget about that.”

  Baffle’s strange behavior at school and Witkowski’s unlikely friendship came immediately
to mind.

  “I think I’d like to hear it anyway, Mr. Goodturn.”

  Putting his glasses back in place on top of his nose, he then peered over the top of them at me. Why clean them if you weren’t going to look through them? I figured it was probably just a habit, like my rubbing my left eye whenever I was nervous.

  “Are you sure? I don’t want to burden our friendship by saying something that might offend you.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. I think I need to hear it.”

  “Mmm. Well, it has to do with who you choose to share your secret knacks with and whether it’s a good idea or not.”

  I waited patiently for him to go on.

  “A long time ago, before I moved to the United States, I was a successful businessman in the German manufacturing industry. I was young and full of confidence and the belief that I could conquer anything. I used my knacks to further my business pursuits and used them without any reservations. The restraint and care I want to teach you weren’t things I had learned for myself yet.

  I had a business partner. He was a man I had known for what seemed to be a long time. I thought I knew him. Like me, he was full of himself. We were arrogant and unapologetic for being that way. He ran the finances and legal side of our business with an amazing amount of foresight, and I took care of the day-to-day details and the people. He had no talent for working on the shop floor or managing people and I didn’t care to work with lawyers or worry about money. We drank together, ate together and celebrated our business successes together. I trusted him and I thought he trusted me.”

  During an evening when we were out drinking and boasting to each other, he about his uncanny intuitive skills and I revealed to him one of my knacks, the one I showed you yesterday. He seemed impressed. I was certainly proud of myself, and I thought nothing of it. As the night wore on, I noticed him looking at me differently, suspiciously. I dismissed it as the alcohol confusing me. I forgot about it until I was forced to remember it.”

  A few months later, I arrived at work and saw frightened looks on our workers’ faces. They kept looking over to the office shack we kept on the warehouse floor where I spent my working hours. They wouldn’t look me in the eye and I knew there was a problem. So, with a chest full of bravado and anxiousness, I marched over to the shack and flung open the door.”

  My partner and our attorney were inside and to make this story shorter than the reality, they had managed to expel me from my own company. My partnership was extinguished and while they did pay me a small sum for my share of the business, definitely not what it was worth, I was out.”

  The mechanics of business in the adult world were beyond me, but my sense of right and wrong felt pretty clear.

  “That’s not right! Couldn’t you sue them?”

  Smiling and shaking his head, Mr. Goodturn wiped his hands on his pants.

  “No, Benny. I had given away too much authority to my partner. I trusted him. Remember?”

  My feeling of justice was outraged, “How could he do that? You were friends!”

  “Yes, I thought so. But here is the answer to that question and the point to my story: greed, fear and jealousy are strong motivators and corrupters. He wanted control of the company and all of its resources. He didn’t want to share the success or the profits, and he was jealous of the relationship I had with our employees. He signed the checks but I was the one who toiled in the trenches with them. He knew their number on the payroll. I knew when they were having a birthday or welcoming a new baby into their family.”

  “But what about your knack? What you had shared with him. How did that affect what he did to you?”

  “Ah, that was my big miscalculation. I forgot about that drunken evening but he, apparently, did not. My knack, in his eyes, my magical ability, scared him. He stopped trusting me. I believe he never brought it up again because he was afraid of it and me. I should have never shared my secret with someone who didn’t have their own knack and, therefore, a better understanding of what it was and wasn’t. And he was a coward. He thought it safer to handle it the way he did rather than to speak with me man to man.”

  I thought about my own situation and tried not to throw up in my mouth.

  “Why didn’t he just talk with you about it? Why didn’t he give you a chance to prove that he didn’t have anything to worry about?”

  Mr. Goodturn’s face became grim and his perpetually happy features collapsed into a frown. It was obvious that the memory made him sad.

  “Oh, I had plenty of warning. I was too busy and cocksure to pay attention. Fewer dinners out together, casually harsh words over trivial differences, multiple meetings that I hadn’t been invited to and petty comments he would make in front of employees. I just wasn’t paying attention. But I learned a very valuable lesson: knacks were to be kept private. People without them see them as a threat.”

  Maddy’s knowledge of my knacks was weighing on my mind, but not as heavily as the fact that Baffle knew about them as well. I had never told him that my mom was not living in the apartment we “shared,” but he did know that he and Maddy and I could all communicate on my own private frequency and he knew how I worked my “magic.” What had seemed like no big deal, now seemed unstable and potentially dangerous. He had always been a tiny bit jealous of my knacks and my friendship with Maddy sometimes made him…frustrated. His new relationship with Witkowski and his defensive behavior seemed like a bigger problem than they had earlier.

  I was suddenly aware of Mr. Goodturn looking at me expectantly.

  “Benny? Are you having second thoughts about hearing my story?”

  “No, um, no. I just need to think about it. I guess I see what you meant about being realistic.”

  “A poor choice of words on my part. Careful—a much better word and more to the point in this case, yes?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s just that it forces me to rethink how I feel about my friends and what I should, and shouldn’t, share with them. It’s kind of hard to hear. It makes me feel sort of sad.”

  A tinkling ringing of small chimes filled Mr. Goodturn’s office as a vintage wall clock signaled the hour.

  “Ah, dinner time my young friend. Let’s brighten our respective afternoons by filling our bellies. And enough time spent on weighty issues. There are simpler things in the world and they all have merit and value as well.”

  I could take a hint; it was time to leave. I got up off the hard metal chair and winced from the stiffness in my leg.

  “But before you go Benny, I have one other thought for you: Truth can be cruel, but it can also be love, and if it is love it can set you free.”

  “Greek poetry?”

  Laughing as he stood up, Mr. Goodturn said, “No. That is a quote from a native son of the U.S. of A.”

  “Mr. Goodturn?”

  “Yes, Benjamin?”

  “What ever happened to your business partner? Is he still running your old company? Did he become rich?”

  His hand fell on my shoulder as we walked out of the office and started toward the front door.

  A frown passed over Mr. Goodturn’s face again. “No, Benjamin. The business eventually closed and he lost everything.”

  “Do you ever hear from him?”

  “No. He passed away a long time ago.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Friday nights are generally lonely at Casa de Brown. At least I had some decent food on hand. The TV was lame, as in no cable. I hadn’t subscribed to any streaming services because I was too paranoid about attracting the attention of anyone looking for an adult of legal age at my address. After dinner, I hit the video console for some gaming but I wasn’t much into it so I shut it down and grabbed a book, flopped on the couch and allowed myself to sink into its worn but soft cushions.

  Just as I was discovering The Life And Times of Harry Houdini, my phone burped. It was Baffle’s ringtone. Childish I know, but he picked it himself.

  “What’s up?” I muttered into the phone.

  “Is
your mom home?” he sounded out of breath.

  “No. She’s working late again. Why?”

  There was a brief silence before he responded.

  “Goodturn, that’s what’s up. All sorts of strange stuff showed up on my Internet search.”

  Suddenly, I was very aware of my heartbeat. “Like what?”

  “Like serious crap dude! Aren’t you hearing me?”

  “I hear you fine but you aren’t really saying anything. What kind of serious…stuff?”

  There was an exasperated sigh on the other end of the call. “Serious. Strange. Weird! Like that guy who came into the pawnshop on Thursday? Guess where he is now?”

  My heart rate started hammering away big time.

  “I give up. Where is he?”

  “In the hospital! He got picked up two blocks from the pawnshop. He was like zoned out. They called it catatonia. Not speaking, had to be given fluids through a tube because he won’t eat or drink. They think he might die!”

  I had started to stand up and then fell back on the couch, trying to get a handle on the conversation.

  “That doesn’t prove anything Baff. I mean, it’s messed up for sure, but that doesn’t mean Mr. Goodturn had anything to do with it. And how do you know for sure it’s the same guy?” Hope is such a slippery thing.

  “They had an old drivers’ license photo posted with the article. And check this out: there have been five other instances of the same symptoms, the data I collected referred to it as an unknown pathology, so what do you think about that?”

  “That sounds pretty vague. Seattle is a big city. There are probably dozens of explanations of how or why someone might have the same symptoms.”

  Baffle laughed ironically. “Uh huh. But I’m not talking about the whole city, Benny. Five cases, in the same hospital, over a two-year period.”

  My stomach started churning as if my elevated heart rate needed company.

  “How did you dig up all this stuff? Where are you getting it?” Knowing him and what he was capable of doing, I was afraid of the answer.