by Robert Reed
“I had time to talk too,” said Dr. Florida. “The two of us are similar, you and me. I told your dad so. When I was hope-high to the world, I was labeled as being different. Like you. I had peculiar skills and a rather uncommon perspective. I was labeled a loon, in fact. You know…crazy? And in those ancient times it was tough for us loons. It was tough to make friends or to feel as if we belonged in the world.”
I tried to imagine that time.
“Maybe that’s one way in which things have improved,” he told us. “We’ve gotten clever at finding and using talent. We’ve become a world of young loons. Rich children and poor…all are somehow blessed.” He paused, then he said, “We make mistakes, yes, and cause sadness. Yes. But adults can appreciate how much things have improved. They’ve seen both sides, and they know what I mean.”
Dad said, “It’s a sweeter world. That’s for sure.”
“Richer. Happier. Better.” Dr. Florida pressed his lips together and stared at me. He didn’t blink for the longest time, and I could practically hear the machinery working inside his skull. Then he said, “Anyway,” and smiled. “When I was your age, Ryder, I was a solitary loon.”
He seemed so friendly and likable. I couldn’t believe he had ever lacked friends, and I wondered if he was teasing me.
“I saw that fortress of yours,” he told me. “The one in the oak? I saw you and your friends boiling out of it, and do you know what I thought? I thought back to my own boyhood treehouse. I had designed it and built it by myself, from scratch and against my mother’s wishes.” He chuckled and said, “My poor nervous mother. I was a bookish boy, not a carpenter, and she thought I would kill myself somehow. So do you know what I did, Ryder? I invented a friend to ease her nerves. An imaginary friend who understood nails and boards. That’s the only way she’d have let me build my fortress in a cottonwood tree beside the local open sewer.”
“A fortress,” I echoed.
“Elegant and proud,” he declared. “Although no match for yours. Of course. In those days we lacked for the modern conveniences. Just a box of creaky boards, in truth, but I loved it. I get a soft feeling when I think of it now. All of the things I’ve accomplished in my life—the science and the business, and what-have-you—and my memories of that rude little thing still make me smile.”
“She never found out?” I asked. “Your mother—?”
“What mother wouldn’t be happier sedated?” He laughed, and Dad laughed too. “No, she didn’t find out about my pretend friend. I don’t think she ever suspected. I had described him with such clarity that she couldn’t have doubted his existence.”
He paused, then he said, “Genes are remarkable things, Ryder.”
He looked at me and said, “My parents had many fine qualities, but they lacked imagination. A personal possesses more creativity than both of them together, I suspect, and of course they believed my little fib. Of course. It never occurred to them that a bookish boy could invent names and faces…whole lives, in effect…using nothing more than the electric ramblings of his lonely brain.”
I said nothing.
“Genetics.” He nodded and said, “One of my first great problems as a geneticist was to decipher my own genetic code and find why two bland people could produce such a loon. And do you know what? I’m still not satisfied with my answers. I’m telling you this in warning, Ryder. Genes are complex. They do enormous dances inside your cells, and there’s no way to predict just what will result from those dances. Even today. There are just too many factors.”
“What happened to your treehouse?” I wondered.
He laughed hard for a long moment, then he said, “Well, when I was too old to enjoy it any longer…a couple years older than you…I built a bomb from chemicals and fermenting bird droppings. The explosion brought two different fire departments to the scene.” He laughed in a mild, amused way. He shook his head and looked at his feet.
Dad was laughing too.
It sounded like a terrible waste, and sad, but I thought it might be one of those jokes best seen from their age. I said nothing. I sat with my hands interlocked and lying on my lap.
Dr. Florida shook his head and smiled. I saw tiredness in his face—the same tiredness I’d seen at the pasture, only it seemed worse now—then it was gone, submerged again, and he told me, “I’m mostly alone in life, Ryder. Even now. Even after all of my supposed successes in science and business. I’m still the loon.” He turned to Dad and said, “Kip? I’m trusting you not to make these confessions public. But it’s true.” He turned back to me. “These multitudes around me? These hallways bursting with energy and ambition? I’ll admit something with perfect frankness. The people working for me are adults, and I’ve never been comfortable with adults. They’re a humorless lot. The worst of them, I mean. They collect around me and my money until I can’t see anyone or anything else. Which is wrong. Wrong and stupid of me and I’d do almost anything to change these circumstances. Do you see what I mean? Ryder?” He breathed and said, “No. I don’t believe you do.”
But I thought I did. I leaned forward and said, “I do. I think.”
He winked and said, “I hope so.” Then he said, “Let me confess one other secret. When I saw you and your friends on that pasture, I took a hard look at myself and felt jealous. Of you. I saw this gulf between us, and when I realized you had a rare talent…well, I decided to offer you my hand. Bridge this gulf between us, in effect…if that doesn’t sound too old-folk quaint to you.”
I said nothing, thinking hard and nodding.
“In other words,” he said, “I’m inviting you back in the near future. Ryder, I’ve made your father an offer, and he’s kindly agreed to take it home and consider it. There are business reasons for doing this thing, but you shouldn’t be distracted by them. My great hope is that you, and your four friends, will come here some weekend day, and I’ll stuff the five of you with lunch and give you other suitable diversions.”
“Dr. Florida wants videos of you,” explained Dad.
“For later, Ryder. For TV spots.” Dr. Florida smiled and said, “Who knows? Maybe you’ll see yourselves on TV all over again.”
“Us?” I wondered.
“Absolutely.” He sighed and said, “Our justification is that it will make good public relations. Dr. Florida helping tomorrow’s people, and so on, and so on.” He paused, then he said, “I hope I am helping people. And you.”
Dad said, “I’ve always believed you are. Sir.”
I said nothing, feeling…what?
Dad cleared his throat and shifted his weight, then he said, “Of course I need to talk to Gwinn first. Before we agree to anything.”
Dr. Florida said, “Naturally. Absolutely!”
“It’s a question of the presentation.” Dad seemed distant while he spoke, the words slow and close to stumbling. “We want Ryder presented in the best light,” and he reached to grip my knee. “I’m sure you understand. Sir.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Kip.”
“Sorry to be so sensitive—”
“Say no more. You have my word for now, and legal papers when the times comes. Should it come.” He smiled as if he understood everything inside our heads. He saw us better than we saw ourselves, I felt. “Are we set? Are we?” He stood and came around the big desk, saying, “Just one more item, Ryder. I wanted you to hear this from me. Do you know what I’ve found most impressive about you? Do you? In all of the boasting stories from your dad, do you know what makes the biggest impact?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t know.
“Not your memory. It’s an impressive talent, yes, but your honesty is the special thing. You’ve got a sweet, steady honesty.”
I managed to say, “Thank you, sir.”
“Oh yes,” he said. “Someone else with your talent could use your reputation to cause mischief. Do you realize that? You could pick and choose your lies. Juggle the facts. Twist the past until you looked splendid, even perfect, and no one would be t
he wiser. Do you see what I mean?”
I nodded and said, “But I do lie. Sometimes—”
And he broke into laughter. “Not to help yourself, I’d bet. Do you lie for your own selfish gains, Ryder?”
I kept silent.
“Now I’ve embarrassed you,” he said. “I apologize.”
Why do I try hard to be honest? I wondered. What makes me so keen on the truth? I considered the question for a long moment, and I blinked and felt the answer inside me. I was honest, thoroughly and wholeheartedly honest, because no one else could even pretend to be that way. No one else could remember little details, or big ones, and for them the past was a pale stew of crazy wishful thinking.
But not my past. Not Ryder’s.
This was my pride, I understood. And pride wasn’t a good thing. Dr. Florida didn’t see my reasons, no, and so his compliments slipped off me. They were gone. They hadn’t mattered a bit.
“I’ve got projects in the fire,” he told us. “I guess we’d better call this meeting finished, men.”
“Come on, son.” I felt Dad’s moist hand once again, and I stood and remembered to say, “Thank you for everything, sir. Thank you,” and Dr. Florida said, “No. Thank you,” and with that I left him.
Dr. Samuelson met us and led us out of the mansion. We took a different course. Dr. Samuelson was carrying a cold gallon of ice cream inside an insulated brown sack, and he watched me and asked, “How do you feel?”
I felt as if I was floating. I couldn’t tell if it was from happiness or nerves or the sweet goo I had drunk. So I said, “I’m fine,” and nothing more. I walked behind and between the men, Dad offering to carry the sack and Dr. Samuelson refusing the offer.
The garage was partly emptied. The smaller cars were gone, the day finished for their owners. Lillith was sitting in the back of our limousine, a pad of liquid crystal paper unrolled on her lap. She was writing until she saw us approaching, and then she rolled the pad closed and said, “How did it go, Kip? Ryder?”
“You never got my blue tomatoes,” said Dad.
She was ready for his jokes. “I’m sorry. Gosh.” She laughed in a smooth, bright way, then she said, “What’s this?” and peeked inside the sack. “Gifts for the patient?”
I didn’t speak. I was thinking.
Dr. Samuelson said good-bye, and the limousine was driving. Dad and Lillith were speaking to each other. Sometimes Dad would watch Lillith. I sat and pulled myself back to the pasture and the snow dragon, concentrating hard, bringing back all of the faces in the crowd. I saw Lillith again. Then I spotted Dr. Samuelson standing beside Dr. Florida’s long limousine, listening and then talking to someone on the phone clenched in his hand. Then I was running. I was chasing the fleeing dragon, and I lost it on the bridge again and turned and looked back at Dr. Florida. I saw his raincoat and hat and him talking to pretty Lillith. I scrubbed and polished the memory, the tiniest details becoming apparent. I couldn’t hear the words, but I knew how to read lips. I’d had plenty of practice from watching people and thinking about them later. I wanted to see what he had said just then, looking toward me and talking—
“Two things,” he had told Lillith.
She had nodded once.
“His name’s Ryder. Run checks on him. He might be a maybe—”
“Right—!”
“And two. Tell John to come up with three more teams. Soon.”
“Three?”
“I don’t care from where. Okay?”
“All right—”
Then I turned and leaped from the bridge. I streaked down the weedy bottoms and missed the rest of it. But what did I miss? And why might I be a maybe? I wondered. A maybe what? Three teams and a maybe, and I sat still and couldn’t begin to guess…
Five
We would play a war game, Marshall and me. We were ten years old and would set up the board on his big dark dining room table. The game had fictional nations and an invented landscape and no particular identity for the troops. Marshall took either color and called himself the U.N. peacekeepers. He wouldn’t play any other way. The U.N. was the decent and rightful side in all conflicts, and Marshall always won. “How could you be the U.N.?” he asked me. “You’d get pulverized every time, Ryder.”
Marshall grinned when he won. A big smart know-it-all grin.
We played that game a hundred times, and one day I looked at my best friend and saw what he was thinking. I saw the grin and realized how little he thought of me. Why hadn’t I seen it before? I wondered. Or maybe I had seen it, only I’d ignored it. Until now.
I took a breath and thought hard.
Then I told him, “Use all your troops this time. Would you?”
He giggled and said, “All right, Ryder. We’ll try it.” He usually spotted me a portion of his army. “This is going to be a quick one,” he said. “Bang and boom and you’re done.”
I ignored him.
I stared at the board, absorbing it, and I didn’t move until I was ready. I took my time and made no mistakes, yet Marshall didn’t notice my resolve. He moved and counter-attacked and made tiny, lazy mistakes, and sometimes he would manufacture explosion sounds until the spit flew across the table. He enjoyed himself enormously. I was too busy to care. I was remembering all the games we had played to date, recalling every move, and he couldn’t distract me. I brought back his own moves and his tactics, and I wouldn’t even touch my pieces until I’d picked the best from the past.
Marshall didn’t notice my scheme.
Between turns he would read a book, thoroughly unconcerned. Then I got a small lead, and he looked at the board and said, “Well.” He said, “I’m going to have to get tough,” and he rolled up his book and said, “This is nothing.” He counted his casualties and said, “Naw. This is the break I usually give you,” and then he leaned forward, putting a finger along his nose.
I said nothing.
He concentrated, playing against himself. I watched the changing alignments and remembered the old battles, and I attacked and attacked, a couple times with luck. Then Marshall looked up at me. He said, “Clever,” with a whispering voice. He shifted his butt against the hard dining room chair and breathed and said, “That’s clever,” with his face changing now. He wasn’t smiling. He focused and attacked and broke my lines in two places, his troops streaming through the gaps, and maybe he would have won. I don’t know. I was hurt and reeling, and it didn’t matter too badly. Not really. I’d done what I’d wanted and wiped the smart smile from his face. That was plenty for me. But then his mother happened into the dining room, pausing for a moment and counting the dead.
“What’s this?” she asked. “What is this?”
It was as if she had found an ugly stain on her fancy table. Her voice was harsh, Marshall saying, “I’m winning,” and her snapping, “Not by my count, mister.” She pricked him with a teasing laugh. Then she shook her head and said, “This isn’t like you, is it? Is it?”
Marshall said nothing.
“What do you say?” she persisted.
“No, ma’am.”
She glanced at me and smiled in a vague way. “Well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? I guess it’s just a game.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t let me bother you,” she told us, and then she was gone.
Marshall was left too flustered to play well. He was breathing hard and staring hard at the board, seeing nothing, and when he took his next turn he made blunders. I could have made the attack myself and done better in his shoes, and in three more turns I had his tiny leftover army in a corner, trapped, and his face was red like I’d never seen it before.
We put away the game, saying nothing.
We went into his backyard, the bambis and other pets running circles around us, and I felt bad for winning. I felt I had cheated in some way, and there was a cold hard pain in my belly. So I said, “Marshall,” and made him look at me. I said, “You know how I did it?” and I told him my secret. All of it. I thought he�
��d be relieved to know that he had been playing against himself, not me.
I wasn’t smart like Marshall, no. I admitted as much.
But he said, “Asshole.” His eyes got strange, his face red and hot, and his hands closed into trembling fists. He said, “Cheater,” and spit at me. Then he grabbed a stick and began to swing it. “That’s cheating, cheating, cheating,” he cried, and he drove the stick into my arm. I felt a white pain in my elbow, and I turned and ran out of his yard. I rushed home and upstairs, never crying and telling no one what had happened; and I made myself a silent vow to never, never have that Marshall shit for a friend again. That cocky shit. Not ever.
We came home from Dr. Florida’s, Dad and me. Dinner was waiting. I barely had time enough to call Cody and tell her to tell the others that I was fine and home and I’d talk to everyone tomorrow at school. As soon as I could, I promised. Good-bye.
We ate in the kitchen, like always. Dad described the tests and the machinery, then he explained the delayed results. “A lot of work was done for charity’s sake, dear. You can’t expect miracles.” We finished dinner and had some small bowls of ice cream for dessert. I felt fine. Mom looked calm and passive. She said, “Should you be eating so much, dear?” But I felt all right. I told them so and finished and excused myself to do my homework.
I had to make up my school time. No chatting with friends until it was done. My teachers had fed assignments into the personal in my room, and I sat and looked at it all and thought it was much too much to do. There were long readings and a report to write, plus math problems just beyond my reach. Memory is just one kind of intelligence; I became frustrated in no time. I was numbed. All I wanted was to be with Cody and the others, telling them everything. I didn’t want to wait for Mom’s permission to return to the mansion. “We’re invited,” I imagined myself saying. “Dr. Florida invited all of us! Can you believe it? Huh? Can you?!”
One hour at my desk became two, then three, and there was still work begging to be finished. I sat back in my chair and gasped and cocked my head to one side. Mom and Dad were in their bedroom, talking. I could hear them. I sat without moving, and I listened.