Invisible

by Pete Hautman

  Like many of my teachers, Mrs. Felko is completely insane.

  What I enjoy doing is changing my design one parameter at a time. For instance, I recently completed an outline version that I find quite interesting:

  I think it looks like an ancient Celtic rune or maybe the logo of a corporation run by elves. I am working now on one in yellow and blue, our school colors. I am planning to give it to Andy to hang on his wall.

  The sigil is an expression of my theory about focus. I have found that doing one thing over and over for a long period of time can be extremely satisfying. I try to explain this to Mrs. Felko.

  “That’s all very well, Douglas, but what we are doing here in this class is learning how to do new things. Everyone else in class is working on their clay sculptures, and here you are, painting your symbol.”

  “It’s not a symbol. It’s a sigil.”

  “Well, I want you to put your ‘sigil’ away for now and get yourself some clay and try something new.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Felko,” I say politely. So I scoop some clay from the plastic bin at the back of the room and use a rolling pin to flatten it into a slab about one inch thick. I then trace the outline of the sigil on its surface and begin to carve. A few minutes later, Mrs. Felko stops by to see how I am doing. The sound of her sigh is like air rushing out of a punctured balloon.

  “Well, Douglas, I see you have found your muse.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She shakes her head. “Are you ever going to share with us the meaning of that device?”

  “It’s not a device, it’s a sigil.”

  “I see,” she said. Although it is perfectly clear to me that she does not understand a thing.

  13

  I SPY

  Melissa Haverman lives at 3417 Oak View Terrace in the Woodland Trails development. Her house has lots of big windows and a wraparound second-story deck, and it is located on a large lot surrounded by trees. All the Woodland Trails lots are surrounded by trees. The idea is that every house in the development is separated from its neighbors by a “greenway,” or a belt of trees about fifty feet wide. That way they can pretend they are living in the middle of a great forest. I’ve seen the sales brochures: In the Arms of Nature—Safe, Forested Privacy Only 20 Minutes from Downtown.

  Of course, the privacy is an illusion. They are still close enough to hear one another’s lawn mowers. The safety is an illusion too. Anybody could be hiding in the greenway—criminals, escapees from the insane asylum, or serial killers.

  Or me. I am sitting in the crotch of an oak tree looking into Melissa Haverman’s bedroom. I guess that is why they call her street Oak View Terrace. It is eleven o’clock at night, but Melissa has not yet gone to bed. Her room is dark except for the faint yellow glow of a night-light.

  I suspect that she is downstairs watching television. I wonder how late her parents will let her stay up.

  Time passes, which I measure in seventeen-second intervals: 17, 34, 51, 68, 85, 102, 119, 136, 153, 170, 187. … I once counted as high as 78,251 before being interrupted. I am always getting interrupted, which is the main challenge to staying focused. My goal is to count to 170,000 by 17s. To do that I would probably have to hide in a cave or something.

  I am at 9,520 when the light goes on in Melissa’s room.

  She is wearing a pink sweatshirt and blue jeans and her hair is tied back in a ponytail. She closes the door and kicks off her shoes and throws herself back on her bed. For thirty-four seconds she just lays there perfectly still, then she sits up and takes off her sweatshirt. She is wearing a white tank top underneath. She stands and carefully folds the sweatshirt and walks it to the part of her room I can’t see. She is out of sight for almost a minute, then she reappears, still wearing the same jeans and tank top, but with her hair loose. She stops right in front of the window and stares out, directly at me. She can’t really be seeing me. She must be looking at her reflection in the glass. I know I am invisible to her in my dark and leafy nest, but the feeling is quite eerie. I am holding my breath.

  Her mouth moves. Who is she talking to? She gestures with one hand, a dismissive, “what ever” flick of the wrist, then she laughs and her mouth forms the words “No way.”

  Is she talking to her reflection? Then I see the thin black cord trailing from her soft blond hair, and I notice the cell phone clipped to the waistband of her jeans. She is talking on her headset. She laughs again and her mouth twists into a disgusted grimace and I can make out the word she is mouthing as clearly as if she were whispering it into my ear: “Worm.”

  The tree starts to spin and I realize that I am still holding my breath. I let it out and replace the dead air in my lungs with fresh oxygen.

  Melissa has her back to the window now and is waving her hands; she is doing a little dance, wiggling her butt and shaking her hair. Then she stops and removes the headset and unclips the phone from her jeans. She starts to unbutton her jeans, then stops, walks a few steps to the window and stares out into the darkness.

  I am crawling back into my bedroom through the window when I hear Andy say, “You’re gonna get caught.”

  I see his white grin in his dark window.

  “Not if you keep your voice down,” I whisper.

  “I don’t mean here and now. I mean over in Woodland. Spying on Melissa.”

  “How did you know where I was?”

  “Where else would you be at midnight on a Monday night?”

  “Maybe I was just taking a walk.”

  “Yeah, a walk to Woodland Trails.”

  “A guy has to walk someplace.”

  “You’re gonna get caught.”

  “I stayed in the greenway. Nobody could see me.”

  “I’m telling you.”

  “I was careful.”

  “So, how is she?”

  “She’s … fine.”

  “You talk to her?”

  “No! I just … I watched her get ready for bed.”

  “Really? How ready? You see her blue panties?”

  “She took off her sweatshirt. She had on a tank top underneath.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then she closed the shades.”

  “Just like last time.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just like every time.”

  “I don’t know why. I mean, the whole point of living there is the privacy. Who does she think is going to be looking?”

  “Well, there’s you.”

  “She doesn’t know that.”

  “Why don’t you just ask her out? I mean, you know so much about her. How could she say no?”

  “Shut up.” I turn my back on him and crawl through the window and close it behind me, but I can still see his grin, floating in the dark.

  14

  BRIDGE

  The Madham suspension bridge is based upon the Golden Gate Bridge, which I once crossed at the age of six years and four months in a car with my parents. Of course, my model is much smaller than the original. In fact, it is a 1:800 scale model.

  As you may know, HO gauge trains are 1:87 models of the real thing, so when I finish the bridge, the train will just barely fit between the uprights. Relatively speaking, if a train that size went across the real Golden Gate Bridge it would be 120 feet tall.

  You may wonder why I didn’t build the bridge to HO scale. The reason is because it would have had to be more than one hundred feet long. It would not have fit in the basement. I might be troubled, I might be disturbed, I might be obsessed—but I’m not crazy.

  There are five critical elements in a suspension bridge: the uprights, the anchors, the deck, the cables, and the stringers. Each element must be brought into perfect balance with each of the other four elements. If one element is too weak, the entire structure collapses.

  The towers and deck of my bridge are built of strike-anywhere matches with the heads scraped off. I do not want my bridge to spontaneously combust. I carefully scrape away all traces of phosphorus, leaving a fift
y-four-millimeter-long matchstick. For the suspension cables I use orange braided nylon cord, and for the stringers I use cotton string, which I dye orange using Rit dye. Many people do not know this, but the Golden Gate Bridge is not actually golden. It is a color called International Orange.

  I have been working on the bridge for several months. It is now only a few weeks away from completion. Opening Day will be November 17. I’ve invited Andy to join me as I send a seventeen-car train across the bridge for the first time. Andy understands about me and bridges. Not everyone else is smart enough to get it.

  For example, here is what Mr. Haughton, my language arts teacher, said about bridges during the midquarter evaluation:

  “Douglas, I can see that you are passionate about your subject matter. Passion is very important to a writer. But maybe you could try to write on another topic?”

  “I could write something about the original Golden Gate Bridge.”

  “I was thinking you might write about something other than bridges.”

  “Why?”

  Mr. Haughton sat back in his chair and stroked his chin. It was the first time I ever saw someone do that except in a movie.

  “Douglas, Douglas, Douglas …,” he said to give himself time to think. “Let me try to explain. …” Mr. Haughton can be ponderous at times. “The writer is like a bridge builder. When you set words down on paper, you are building a bridge between yourself and the reader. And if what you write fails to engage the reader, your effort has been in vain. You have built a bridge to nowhere. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  “The writer is like a bridge builder.”

  “Yes. The bridges you build are, in fact, deliberate acts of communication. But if what you are writing is not interesting, then you have wasted your time. Do you understand?”

  “You don’t find bridges interesting.”

  “Yes. I mean no. The problem is not with bridges per se. It is the fact that you describe your model bridge in such excruciating detail, with so much repetition, with so many measurements and formulas and numbers … the fact is, very few readers will be able to follow your thoughts.”

  “Do you think I need to explain more?”

  “No!” He almost shouted the word, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Douglas, I just think that if you were to write on a topic that was not so … important to you, your writing might in fact be clearer and more readable. As a related comment on your work, I’d like to remind you that when I ask for a three page essay, it is not necessary for you to turn in a thirty page dissertation.”

  “Some of those pages were drawings and photographs.”

  “Yes, well, even so, you must have had five thousand words in there.”

  “Four thousand nine hundred thirteen.” That’s seventeen cubed, but I don’t bother pointing that out to Mr. Haughton. “You said that we could write a longer essay for extra credit.”

  “I did? Oh, well, perhaps I did … but in the future, Douglas … please consider another topic. That’s all I’m saying.”

  As you can see, Mr. Haughton is not a clear-thinking individual. What he says actually makes little sense. Consider the following useful information that Mr. Haughton wanted me to cut out of my essay:

  Total length of bridge: 3.33 meters. Length of main span: 2.34 meters. Width of bridge: 7 cm. Clearance above water: 12 cm. Height of towers: 34 cm. Number of main cables: 2. Composition of main cables: braided 1/4-inch nylon cord (orange). Number of stringers: 391. Composition of stringers: cotton string (dyed orange). Inches of thread used: 6,092 cm. Number of matchsticks used: 8,600. Paints used: semigloss enamel (International Orange) and matte enamel (Battleship Gray).

  I might also mention that he is dead wrong when he says that writing and bridge building are the same thing. They are actually quite different. I know, because I am quite good at both of them.

  15

  GEORGE FULLER

  The bridge deck is where most of the matchsticks go. Each 2.125-inch segment of the deck requires fifty-two matchsticks, which have to be glued together in a double layer with each match staggered so that the segments dovetail together and lock like LEGO blocks, end to end, plus the railing and cross members. Sixty-two of these interlocking segments make up the bridge deck, and it is important that each segment be constructed to precise tolerances.

  (Am I boring you? Mr. Haughton would call this boring, but I find it quite fascinating.)

  Only about a third of the matches are straight enough to use, which is why I have already gone through sixty boxes. I am very selective and very precise. Each deck segment is glued one at a time. I made a jig out of some pieces of scrap oak so that every segment will come out exactly the same. So far I have manufactured fifty-seven of these segments, each of which has to be trimmed, sanded, painted International Orange on the side edges and bottom, and Battleship Gray on the top, or roadbed side. It is exacting work requiring tremendous concentration on the part of the bridge builder. It is much harder than writing.

  I am fine-tuning the fit of two segments I glued together last night when I hear my father’s booming voice from outside. At first I try to ignore it, because I do not wish to be disturbed, but the shouting goes on. I put down my Dremel tool and go upstairs.

  My father is outside having a discussion with George Fuller, the man who has been staying with the Morrows. My father is wearing his canvas apron over his shirt and tie. He is wearing leather gloves and he has a pruning tool in his right hand, which tells me that he was working on the rosebushes that line the front of our house. George Fuller, dressed in khaki shorts and a yellow T-shirt, has his hairy arms crossed in front of his chest.

  “What do you expect us to DO?” my father booms, gesticulating with the pruner.

  “Maybe you could move your son to another bedroom.”

  “Another BEDROOM? How many rooms do you think we HAVE?”

  “Look, Henry, I’m not trying to be the evil neighbor. I just—”

  “DO YOU WANT US TO STRAP HIM TO HIS BED AND GAG HIM?”

  “Henry, I just want to get a good night’s sleep is all. Every other night I wake up, middle of the night, and have to listen to that yakking. Frankly, it’s a little unsettling.”

  “DO YOU THINK IT IS NOT A PROBLEM FOR US TOO?”

  “I’m sure it is, but—” His eyes find me standing in the doorway. For a second he is startled, then he slaps on this big fake smile and says, “Hey, Doug, how’s it going?”

  My father turns, shifting his anger from George Fuller to me. “What are you DOING?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “I heard some yelling.”

  “WE ARE NOT YELLING!”

  George Fuller is edging away. “Listen, Henry, we can talk about this at another time. …”

  My father swings his head back toward George Fuller and fixes him with his my-eyes-are-about-to-explode glare. He is squeezing his rosebush pruner so hard, his entire hand has gone dead white. George Fuller continues to edge away, back toward the Morrows’. I figure the yelling is about over now, so I back into the house and return to my bridge building.

  George Fuller has been staying in the Morrow house for the past couple of years. It is a very peculiar arrangement. Andy has tried to explain it to me, but I still find it quite odd. One day George Fuller simply showed up with a U-Haul truck and moved a bunch of his furniture into the Morrows’ home and he has been staying with them ever since.

  “Isn’t it crowded?” I asked Andy.

  Andy shrugged. “A little. But George is a nice guy, and he needed a place to live.”

  “It’s been two years! Is he ever going to find a place of his own?”

  “Keep your voice down, Dougie. You want them to move my room to the other side of the house?”

  “Don’t your parents want him to move out?”

  “Nah. George is real handy. When’s the last time you saw my dad mow the lawn? George does all the chores now. He even does my chores, on account of I’m so busy with school and footb
all and theater and stuff.”

  “That makes sense,” I said. And it did make sense. But I still think it’s weird that this guy who isn’t even a relative just moved in and sort of took over. I think it is very strange indeed. But then, my family is not so ordinary either.

  16

  POOPING CAT

  My mother’s full and proper name is Andrea Doris Louis-Hanson, but as a professional puzzle designer she is known as A. D. Louis. Ask any puzzle fanatic if they ever heard of A. D. Louis, and they will tell you she is one of the best. She can solve a crossword puzzle just as fast as she can write. And she can design one faster than most people can solve it.

  A lot of modern puzzlers use computers to help them design their puzzles. Not my mother. She does it all by hand. She will sharpen an entire coffee can full of number two pencils, lay a big sheet of graph paper over the kitchen table, and go to work. My earliest memory is of sitting in my high chair eating Cheerios and watching my mother smoke cigarettes and mutter as she filled in those little squares. These days she doesn’t smoke. Instead, she chews up her pencils, which can’t be good for her either.

  “There’s some lasagna left over from last night, Douglas,” she says without taking her eyes from the graph paper.

  “I’m not hungry,” I say.

  “Then why are you perched there with your head in the freezer compartment?”

  “I’m cooling it off.”

  Now she turns to look at me.

  I say, “I think better when my head is cold.”

  “Douglas, that makes no sense whatsoever. The effect of temperature on the speed of thought is negligible. In any case, lower temperatures would be more likely to inhibit efficient mentation.”

  Did I mention that my mother has an extensive vocabulary?

  I say, “It works. You should try it.”

  “I will do no such thing. Please close the freezer door.”

  I close the door as far as it will go without crushing my skull.