He seems more at home, more naturally in his element, in the buggy. I know his bolts remain close at hand, in the pocket of his broadfalls, but still, he seems to be fully comfortable now that we’re in Amish country and he’s in Amish clothing. Looking at him, I wouldn’t know he’s autistic. Or that he’s really only eleven.
“There’s a small town up this road. Mostly Amish. Drury Falls,” Ben says.
I smile at him. “Lot of waterfalls out here in this part of Ohio, are there?”
“I don’t know why they call it that,” Ben says. “But I can find out if you want to know.”
“That’s all right,” I say.
“Drury Falls is almost completely surrounded by Amish farms,” he says. “We should fit in here. Except…”
“Except what?”
“Except for your mustache. The Amish married men have beards, but no mustaches. Unmarried men are clean-shaven.”
I reach up and rub my face. I guess I’ve forgotten that I haven’t shaved since this whole ordeal began. “I’ll need to shave when we get somewhere safe.”
* * *
Driving into Drury Falls, Ohio is a lot like driving back in time. There are black buggies everywhere, and there are no fast food restaurants. We pass a café, and one other business that just says Sandwich Shoppe on the sign.
We also pass by house after house—large Victorian-style homes. Owned by Englischers, I reckon. Probably the folks who keep businesses running around here. Ben tells me that often liberal Mennonites will buy homes in small towns that serve the Amish. They work at the restaurants and stores and have houses that are on the grid.
“You can always tell a house that’s owned by the Amish,” Ben says, “because they’ll all have the same color blinds on the windows. There won’t be any power lines, and you won’t see a newspaper box up near the mailbox.”
“Why no newspaper box?” I ask.
Ben laughs—an honest-to-goodness real laugh—and smacks his thigh. “They only read the Budget, not the local paper. And the Budget comes in the mail, so they don’t need a newspaper box.”
“Why the same color blinds?”
“Competition,” Ben says. “Once you get into buying drapes or curtains, the mothers can’t help getting nice things. And then the neighbors want nicer curtains. Where does it end?”
“I see.”
As we get toward the center of town, an Amish boy runs up alongside the buggy and hands me a flyer. He shouts something in the Amish tongue, but I don’t understand it.
The flyer is hand-printed and looks to have been run off on a photocopier from decades ago.
DRURY FALLS MARKET DAY
Third Saturday
Blacksmith Goods
Tools and Equipment
Farm Implements
Vegetables and Breads
Good Cider
Washing Machines and other Appliances
Generators
Tack and Leather Goods
…and other sundries…
I fold up the flyer and let it drop to the floor of the buggy. “Seems like we’ve passed back to the 1800s,” I say.
We pass a bus station and I notice Amish men and women loitering around outside. Some of the men are smoking pipes, and the women wear kapps or bonnets and their dresses and aprons go all the way down to just above their ankles. A lot like I’ve seen when the Amish would come see me at my clinic.
“What next?” Ben asks.
“Let’s pull over on a side street and get out. We need to blend in here, and I’m afraid the horse and buggy will get recognized,” I say.
We pull over, and when we’re out of the buggy, Ben slaps the horse on the rump. The beast clops away, taking the buggy with it.
“Why’d you do that?” I ask.
Ben’s mouth indicates an almost smile. “He’ll take himself home. That’s if he makes it through the stop signs. They usually do all right.”
“Why don’t they stop at the stop signs?”
“Horses can’t read,” Ben says with eyes dancing, like I amuse him with my silliness.
I start to walk, and Ben catches up with me. His hands are deep in his pockets, and to look at him you wouldn’t know that he’s only a boy. He looks for all the world like a young Amish man, and it’s hard for me to assimilate the fact that the most powerful and deadly government in the history of the world wants him dead.
“I saw an abandoned motel just as we were coming into town,” I say. “Maybe we can hole up there until I come up with a plan.”
* * *
On the way back through town, we stop at the Sandwich Shoppe for some food and a cold drink. Although most of the people in or near the shop don’t notice us at all, I feel self-conscious with my mustache and I try to avert my eyes whenever an Amish person looks at me.
We eat the sandwiches as we walk, and it’s late afternoon when we come upon the Sleep Over Motel, an old abandoned structure from the early to mid twentieth century, probably from the heyday of automobile travel. The windows are boarded up and it looks like the motel has been closed for a few decades, but there hasn’t been much vandalism. Probably not a lot of juvenile delinquency in Drury Falls.
We pick a unit that’s toward the back and off the street, and I force the door without much trouble. The room is dirty but not destroyed, and there’s a plain sink near where the bed would once have been, but the water is shut off.
“Why are we here?” Ben asks.
“You know why we’re here,” I say. “We’re trying to escape from people who want to kill us.”
“I know that,” Ben says. “But if someone asks us, why do we say we’re here in Drury Falls?”
I’m surprised that Ben is so aware of what’s happening, that he’s already considering our cover story. I can’t believe his CAINing is working this well. Then I realize that it’s probably not the CAIN protocols at all that are contributing to Ben’s sudden awareness. They probably got the ball rolling, but now Ben is out of his shell and exploring the whole world on his own.
In his head.
“I’m still not… I still don’t like the lying,” Ben says.
I put a hand on Ben’s shoulder. He doesn’t pull away this time. “I know you don’t. And frankly I’m glad you don’t feel comfortable with it. That shows you have a strong character. But sometimes, as adults, there are things we have to do for the greater good.”
“I’m not an adult,” Ben says. He pulls out his bolts and sits on the floor. He stims, but only a little, rocking back and forth to comfort himself.
I sit next to him and put my arm around him. “I know you’re not an adult, Ben. I know. But no one else does, and we need to stay alive so the bad guys don’t win.”
“So we have to lie?”
“We do.”
“And kill people?”
“I really, really hope not.”
I smile at Ben to try to relieve some of the stress I’m picking up from him. “Listen, Ben, here’s the deal. We’re in town looking to relocate. We’ll say the economy has gotten tough in Lancaster County, where we’re from, and we’re looking for cheaper farmland. From my experiences, you Amish are quite standoffish when it comes to telling your stories, so we can play shy if we need to. I know enough to probably get us by, and you’ll be there to fill in any details if they’re needed. Okay?”
Ben’s eyes scan mine for a second, not disagreeing, and then drop as he stims.
I leave Ben to his rocking and I go outside to look around a little. I find a trough with a little water in it from a recent rain, and I dig out a small Tupperware bowl from a pile of garbage near what used to be a trash can. I clean the bowl a little with my hand. I have a loose idea that I might shave, but I have no razor or soap. Maybe I can scrounge around some more and find something.
Just then, a man steps around a corner and frightens me to the point that I drop the bowl. He looks to be an old homeless man—unkempt stringy beard and mostly harmless—and he leans against the buildin
g and winks at me as he chews on the end of a tiny cigar butt.
“What’s up, Kenny?” the man says.
“I’m not Kenny,” I say. “I don’t know Kenny and I haven’t seen anyone by that name.”
“Sure enough, Kenny,” the man says. “Glad to have neighbors. You wouldn’t happen to have a light, would ya?”
I look the man up and down. He’s wearing several layers of filthy clothes and his grayish beard reaches nearly to his belly. His hat is cocked to one side—it’s the tri-corner kind, like from the Revolutionary War, and he has an old feather stuck in it for ornamentation—but it, too, is old and dingy.
“I don’t have a light,” I say. “And my name isn’t Kenny.”
The man laughs and thrusts his hands into his pockets. “Whatever, Kenny. So anyways, I’m tremendously pleased to make your acquaintance. Let me know if there’s anything I can get for you. The management is… noticeably absent… if you know what I mean. But I try to accommodate strangers so long as they’re passing through.”
The man turns to leave, and he takes a few steps before stopping and facing me again. “Try to keep the celebratory festivities to a minimum after midnight, Kenny… unless you invite me, of course. I’m Gordon the Night Watch, but I sleep at night, so the moniker is a bit of a misnomer. You’ll find me in the last unit at the end of this building. Number 101. And I should say, the law enforcement in this thriving metropolis is also… noticeably absent… so if you have any troubles, leave me out of it. Enjoy your stay, Kenny.”
“My name’s not Kenny,” I say to his back as he walks away. But he only waves over his shoulder and disappears around the corner.
* * *
When I get back to the room, I find Ben straightening up the place. He’s using an old newspaper as a broom and sweeping out the area where I suppose we’ll sleep. I have the bowl of water, so I place it in the old sink.
“I’ve been trying to think about how I can shave,” I say.
Ben thinks for a moment, and then he looks up at me and smiles. He holds up his hand and turns it over in front of me. And then something amazing happens. Something I hadn’t considered. The hand begins to change, and for a second I think that Ben might be having an episode—but when I look up to his face, he is calm and focused.
The skin on his hand peels back and rolls up, and the machine that appears from underneath is fully robotic. One of the robot’s huge fingers protrudes and begins to rotate, and that’s when I know what Ben is doing.
He has a multitude of tools built into each finger. Like a Transformer version of a Swiss army knife. A sharp blade only a quarter of an inch wide extends, and Ben holds it up to my face.
“No,” I say.
“I can shave you,” Ben says.
I step back and hold my hands up in front of me. “You’ve never shaved before in your life!”
“You’re right, I haven’t,” Ben says. “But I just watched a video of it, and I can watch more.”
“But… we… we… we don’t have any soap,” I say. I’m scared to death, but Ben is as calm as I’ve ever seen him. Then it occurs to me that, even though I’ll be putting my life in Ben’s hands, this could be a way for me to build more trust with the boy. If I trust him, he’ll trust me.
“You might get a nick or two,” Ben says, “but I’ll be careful.”
* * *
We found a little nub of soap in the shower. My lucky day, I suppose. And as Ben shaves me, I think about how far he’s come in such a short time. Frankly, it pleases me a lot. Probably the only thing that has pleased me in a very long time. I’m thinking now that if I can get Frank—Ben—past the sixty-day cutoff without having to shut him down, I can integrate him into an Amish community and let him live out his days. After all, no one knows what he looks like. I suppose the agents who tried to kill me at the general store got a look at him from a distance, but when we built the HADroid we made the human as generic as possible. I mean, he’s a good-looking kid, but he’s no Brad Pitt, and his weight, height, skin tone and hair color are as plain as we could possibly devise.
Ben hits a particularly rough patch in my beard and I get a nick, but it’s no worse than what I’d have done to myself if I were the one doing the shaving. And he seems to really be enjoying himself. He’s adapted well to human contact, and that’s a good sign. And for the first time, I feel hope. Real hope. Maybe there is some way for the boy to make it through all this.
Sure, there are other problems. He won’t age, for instance. That’s a big one. But that’s a problem for decades from now, when people aren’t looking for him anymore.
They’ll always be looking for him.
I push the thought away.
After the shave, I decide to destroy the identification cards we still have left. I keep the cash, but I burn everything else in the sink with some matches I found in a pile of trash in the bathroom. We won’t need IDs as long as we remain among the Amish; the plain people don’t use or carry identification. And there’s no point in hanging on to useless IDs that could only serve to blow our cover.
I then put Ben down for a rest. Or, that is to say, I power him down so he can continue the CAINing protocols. If he hasn’t gone through them all already. Which he probably has.
I step into the bathroom and relieve myself in the toilet. Too late, I realize the toilet won’t flush. Ben won’t have this problem: his power plant destroys his waste by incinerating it into ash. It can build up for months before he’s prompted to dump it. Any liquids he consumes are separated out; the water is then reclaimed and used for producing tears and artificial sweat. The rest is dehydrated.
But I have to dispose of my waste the old-fashioned way. And now I have a stinking toilet I need to deal with. So I take the Tupperware bowl and head back to the water trough. On my second trip, I pass Gordon the Night Watch. He waves as he walks by.
“Nice shave, Kenny,” is all he says.
After five trips with the bowl, I have enough water in the toilet’s reservoir to flush. Problem solved.
I let Ben sleep for a couple hours while I rest and think. And when I’ve hatched a new plan, I wake the boy up. It’s twilight, and the day is finally giving way to blue-black night. The streets are lit up outside, and I feel invigorated enough by the turn of events to look forward to a brisk walk.
“Okay, Ben,” I say. “Do you remember my name?”
“Fred,” he says with a laugh. “You’re Fred Bontrager, my brother.”
“All right, then,” I say, “but I prefer if you just call me Doc.”
“The Amish aren’t doctors.”
“I know, but if anyone asks, we can say I was handy in helping out with the sick cows or something like that.”
“It would be good if you could help with the cows,” Ben says. “And you really are a doctor, so… I like it.”
“Either Fred or Doc will work, though,” I say. “Doc is just a nickname.”
“Okay, Doc.”
“Let’s go for a walk,” I say. “We’re going to that bus station, because I have a plan.”
CHAPTER 13
I’m starting to get used to calling Frank by his new name. Ben. And he takes to the new name like it really is his own. Like he’d never been known as Frank. Maybe it’s his programming, or maybe it’s because he’s a trusting boy with a brain that works a little differently than most people’s, but I continue to be surprised and pleased with his progress. The CAINing couldn’t be working better. Ben has accepted this new life, and new facts and information no longer throw him into a fit or cause him to retreat inside himself.
It’s hard to believe that only days ago he nearly demolished a motel because he was freaked out over some cartoons on television. Now he’s looking up information on his computer drives every time he wants to know something, and it seems as though he feels comfortable having instant access to anything he wants to know. He still has to learn things contextually and in real-time, but it happens so fast it’s almost seamless. When
I think about it long enough, it even scares me a little.
We’re walking down Main Street in Drury Falls, heading to the bus station, because that’s where we’re going to find Ben’s new life. I’m carrying our changes of clothes rolled up in one of the Amish shirts so if we find someone to take us in, we won’t have to go back to the motel.
I’m no longer even considering heading to New Orleans. At least… not with Ben.
I’ve thought a lot about this.
Frank… Ben… he doesn’t need to be holed up in a safe house. He needs to be hidden among his people. Because he’s Amish, and they’re all hidden. Hidden in plain sight. They all look very much alike, and they dress alike. They don’t carry ID, and the government doesn’t care because they’re not considered a threat to anyone. They look after their own and provide for themselves, and they have very little interaction with the outside world. With the Englischers. So I’m going to hide Ben among his own people. It’ll be the best place for him. It’ll be his home.
And the government will be looking for us elsewhere. Soon enough, they will. Whoever tipped them off, they know we were heading south. If we can hide out for a few days, for a week, maybe they’ll shift their search grids and start looking for us outside of Ohio. That’s what I hope will happen, anyway. I’m sure we’ll find out before long.
“What’re we going to do at the bus station, Doc?” Ben says.
“We’re going to stay there overnight, like we’re waiting for a bus, or to pick someone up,” I say. “People sleep in bus stations all the time.”
Ben looks over at me with a quizzical look on his face. “Why would we do that?”
I hold up a finger like I’ve had a brilliant idea, and I smile.
“Because come morning, everyone who was working the night shift at the station, and everyone who might have seen us waiting, will have moved on or gone home. That means we can blend in with other Amish getting off any bus that arrives in the morning, and then we can implement the second half of my plan.”
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