American Science Fiction

by Gary K. Wolfe

  Gimpy said thats what I thought it was some kind of a gag. He limped all around the mashine and he said to Mr Donner I dont understand it either but Charlie knows how to handle it and I got to admit it he does a better job then Oliver.

  Everybody was crowded around and talking about it and I got scared because they all looked at me funny and they were exited. Frank said I told you there is something peculier lately about Charlie. And Joe Carp says yeah I know what you mean. Mr Donner sent everybody back to work and he took me out to the front of the store with him.

  He said Charlie I dont know how you done it but it looks like you finally learned something. I want you to be carefull and do the best you can do. You got yourself a new job with a 5 doller raise.

  I said I dont want a new job because I like to clean up and sweep and deliver and do things for my friends but Mr Donner said never mind your friends I need you for this job. I dont think much of a man who dont want to advance.

  I said whats advance mean. He scratched his head and looked at me over his glasses. Never mind that Charlie. From now on you work that mixer. Thats advance.

  So now instead of delivering packiges and washing out the toilets and dumping the garbage. Im the new mixer. Thats advance. Tomorrow I will tell Miss Kinnian. I think she will be happy but I dont know why Frank and Joe are mad at me. I asked Fanny and she said never mind those fools. This is April Fools day and the joke backfired and made them the fools instead of you.

  I asked Joe to tell me what was the joke that backfired and he said go jump in the lake. I guess their mad at me because I worked the mashine but they didnt get the day off like they thought. Does that mean Im getting smarter.

  April 3—Finished Robinson Crusoe. I want to find out more about what happens to him but Miss Kinnian says thats all there is. WHY.

  April 4—Miss Kinnian says Im learning fast. She read some of my progress reports and she looked at me kind of funny. She says Im a fine person and Ill show them all. I asked her why. She said never mind but I shouldnt feel bad if I find out that everybody isnt nice like I think. She said for a person who God gave so little to you did more than a lot of people with brains they never even used. I said that all my friends are smart people and their good. They like me and they never did anything that wasnt nice. Then she got something in her eye and she had to run out to the ladys room.

  While I was sitting in the teaching room waiting for her I was wondering about how Miss Kinnian was a nice lady like my mother use to be. I think I remember my mother told me to be good and always be freindly to people. She said but always be careful because some people dont understand and they might think you are trying to make trouble.

  That makes me remember when mom had to go away and they put me to stay in Mrs Leroys house who lived next door. Mom went to the hospital. Dad said she wasnt sick or nothing but she went to the hospital to bring me back a baby sister or a brother. (I still dont know how they do that) I told them I want a baby brother to play with and I dont know why they got me a sister instead but she was nice like a doll. Only she cryd all the time.

  I never hurt her or nothing.

  They put her in a crib in their room and once I heard Dad say dont worry Charlie wouldnt harm her.

  She was like a bundle all pink and screaming sometimes that I couldnt sleep. And when I went to sleep she woke me up in the nighttime. One time when they were in the kitchen and I was in my bed she was crying. I got up to pick her up and hold her to get quiet the way mom does. But then Mom came in yelling and took her away. And she slapped me so hard I fell on the bed.

  Then she startid screaming. Dont you ever touch her again. Youll hurt her. Shes a baby. You got no business touching her. I dint know it then but I guess I know it now that she thought I was going to hurt the baby because I was too dumb to know what I was doing. Now that makes me feel bad because I would never of hurt the baby.

  When I go to Dr Straus office I got to tell him about that.

  April 6—Today, I learned, the comma, this is, a, comma (,) a period, with, a tail, Miss Kinnian, says its, importent, because, it makes writing, better, she said, somebody, could lose, a lot, of money, if a comma, isnt in, the right, place, I got, some money, that I, saved from, my job, and what, the foundation, pays me, but not, much and, I dont, see how, a comma, keeps, you from, losing it,

  But, she says, everybody, uses commas, so Ill, use them, too,,,,

  April 7—I used the comma wrong. Its punctuation. Miss Kinnian told me to look up long words in the dictionary to learn to spell them. I said whats the difference if you can read it anyway. She said its part of your education so from now on Ill look up all the words Im not sure how to spell. It takes a long time to write that way but I think Im remembering more and more.

  Anyway thats how come I got the word punctuation right. Its that way in the dictionary. Miss Kinnian says a period is punctuation too, and there are lots of other marks to learn. I told her I thought she meant all the periods had to have tails and be called commas. But she said no.

  She said; You, got. to-mix?them!up: She showd? me” how, to mix! them; up, and now! I can. mix( up all? kinds of punctuation— in, my. writing! There” are lots, of rules; to learn? but. Im’ get’ting them in my head:

  One thing? I, like: about, Dear Miss Kinnian: (thats, the way? it goes; in a business, letter (if I ever go! into business?) is that, she: always; gives me’ a reason” when—I ask. She”s a gen’ius! I wish? I cou’d be smart-like-her;

  Punctuation, is? fun!

  April 8—What a dope I am! I didn’t even understand what she was talking about. I read the grammar book last night and it explains the whole thing. Then I saw it was the same way as Miss Kinnian was trying to tell me, but I didn’t get it. I got up in the middle of the night and the whole thing straightened out in my mind.

  Miss Kinnian said that the TV working, just before I fell asleep and during the night, helped out. She said I reached a plateau. That’s like the flat top of a hill.

  After I figured out how punctuation worked, I read over all my old progress reports from the beginning. Boy, did I have crazy spelling and punctuation! I told Miss Kinnian I ought to go over the pages and fix all the mistakes, but she said, “No, Charlie, Professor Nemur wants them just as they are. That’s why he lets you keep them after they’re photostated—to see your own progress. You’re coming along fast, Charlie.”

  That made me feel good. After the lesson I went down and played with Algernon. We don’t race any more.

  April 10—I feel sick. Not like for a doctor, but inside my chest it feels empty, like getting punched and a heartburn at the same time.

  I wasn’t going to write about it, but I guess I got to, because it’s important. Today was the first day I ever stayed home from work on purpose.

  Last night Joe Carp and Frank Reilly invited me to a party. There were lots of girls and Gimpy was there and Ernie too. I remembered how sick I got last time I drank too much, so I told Joe I didn’t want to drink anything. He gave me a plain coke instead. It tasted funny, but I thought it was just a bad taste in my mouth.

  We had a lot of fun for a while.

  “Dance with Ellen,” Joe said. “She’ll teach you the steps.” Then he winked at her like he had something in his eye.

  She said, “Why don’t you leave him alone?”

  He slapped me on the back. “This is Charlie Gordon, my buddy, my pal. He’s no ordinary guy—he’s been promoted to working on the dough-mixing machine. All I did was ask you to dance with him and give him a good time. What’s wrong with that?”

  He pushed me up close against her. So she danced with me. I fell three times and I couldn’t understand why because no one else was dancing besides Ellen and me. And all the time I was tripping because somebody’s foot was always sticking out.

  They were all around in a circle watching and laughing at the way we were doing the steps. They la
ughed harder every time I fell, and I was laughing too because it was so funny. But the last time it happened I didn’t laugh. I picked myself up and Joe pushed me down again.

  Then I saw the look on Joe’s face and it gave me a funny feeling in my stomach.

  “He’s a scream,” one of the girls said. Everybody was laughing.

  “Oh, you were right, Frank,” choked Ellen. “He’s a one man side show.” Then she said, “Here, Charlie, have a fruit.” She gave me an apple, but when I bit into it, it was fake.

  Then Frank started laughing and he said, “I told ya he’d eat it. C’n you imagine anyone dumb enough to eat wax fruit?”

  Joe said, “I ain’t laughed so much since we sent him around the corner to see if it was raining that night we ditched him at Halloran’s.”

  Then I saw a picture that I remembered in my mind when I was a kid and the children in the block let me play with them, hide-and-go-seek and I was IT. After I counted up to ten over and over on my fingers I went to look for the others. I kept looking until it got cold and dark and I had to go home.

  But I never found them and I never knew why.

  What Frank said reminded me. That was the same thing that happened at Halloran’s. And that was what Joe and the rest of them were doing. Laughing at me. And the kids playing hide-and-go-seek were playing tricks on me and they were laughing at me too.

  The people at the party were a bunch of blurred faces all looking down and laughing at me.

  “Look at him. His face is red.”

  “He’s blushing. Charlie’s blushing.”

  “Hey, Ellen, what’d you do to Charlie? I never saw him act like this before.”

  “Boy, Ellen sure got him worked up.”

  I didn’t know what to do or where to turn. Her rubbing up against me made me feel funny. Everyone was laughing at me and all of a sudden I felt naked. I wanted to hide myself so they wouldn’t see. I ran out of the apartment. It was a large apartment house with lots of halls and I couldn’t find my way to the staircase. I forgot all about the elevator. Then, after, I found the stairs and ran out into the street and walked for a long time before I went to my room. I never knew before that Joe and Frank and the others liked to have me around just to make fun of me.

  Now I know what they mean when they say “to pull a Charlie Gordon.”

  I’m ashamed.

  And another thing. I dreamed about that girl Ellen dancing and rubbing up against me and when I woke up the sheets were wet and messy.

  April 13—Still didn’t go back to work at the bakery. I told Mrs. Flynn, my landlady, to call and tell Mr. Donner I’m sick. Mrs. Flynn looks at me lately like she’s scared of me.

  I think it’s a good thing about finding out how everybody laughs at me. I thought about it a lot. It’s because I’m so dumb and I don’t even know when I’m doing something dumb. People think it’s funny when a dumb person can’t do things the same way they can.

  Anyway, now I know I’m getting a little smarter every day. I know punctuation, and I can spell good. I like to look up all the hard words in the dictionary and I remember them. And I try to write these progress reports very careful but that’s hard to do. I am reading a lot now, and Miss Kinnian says I read very fast. And I even understand a lot of the things I’m reading about, and they stay in my mind. There are times when I can close my eyes and think of a page and it all comes back like a picture.

  But other things come into my head too. Sometimes I close my eyes and I see a clear picture. Like this morning just after I woke up, I was laying in bed with my eyes open. It was like a big hole opened up in the walls of my mind and I can just walk through. I think its far back . . . a long time ago when I first started working at Donner’s Bakery. I see the street where the bakery is. Fuzzy at first and then it gets patchy with some things so real they are right here now in front of me, and other things stay blurred, and I’m not sure. . . .

  A little old man with a baby carriage made into a pushcart with a charcoal burner, and the smell of roasting chestnuts, and snow on the ground. A young fellow, skinny with wide eyes and a scared look on his face looking up at the store sign. What does it say? Blurred letters in a way that don’t make sense. I know now that the sign says DONNER’S BAKERY, but looking back in my memory at the sign I can’t read the words through his eyes. None of the signs make sense. I think that fellow with the scared look on his face is me.

  Bright neon lights. Christmas trees and sidewalk peddlers. People bundled in coats with collars up and scarves around their necks. But he has no gloves. His hands are cold and he puts down a heavy bundle of brown paper bags. He’s stopping to watch the little mechanical toys that the peddler winds up—the tumbling bear, the dog jumping, the seal spinning a ball on its nose. Tumbling, jumping, spinning. If he had those toys for himself he would be the happiest person in the world.

  He wants to ask the red-faced peddler, with his fingers sticking through the brown cotton gloves, if he can hold the tumbling bear for a minute, but he is afraid. He picks up the bundle of paper bags and puts it on his shoulder. He is skinny but he is strong from many years of hard work.

  “Charlie! Charlie! . . . fat head barley!”

  Children circle around him laughing and teasing him like little dogs snapping at his feet. Charlie smiles at them. He would like to put down his bundle and play games with them, but when he thinks about it the skin on his back twitches and he feels the way the older boys throw things at him.

  Coming back to the bakery he sees some boys standing in the door of a dark hallway.

  “Hey look, there’s Charlie!”

  “Hey, Charlie. What you got there? Want to shoot some craps?”

  “C’mere. We won’t hurtya.”

  But there is something about the doorway—the dark hall, the laughing, that makes his skin twitch again. He tries to know what it is but all he can remember is their dirt and piss all over his clothes, and Uncle Herman shouting when he came home all covered with filth, and how Uncle Herman ran out with a hammer in his hand to find the boys who did that to him. Charlie backs away from the boys laughing in the hallway, drops the bundle. Picks it up again and runs the rest of the way to the bakery.

  “What took you so long, Charlie?” shouts Gimpy from the doorway to the back of the bakery.

  Charlie pushes through the swinging doors to the back of the bakery and sets down the bundle on one of the skids. He leans against the wall shoving his hands into his pockets. He wishes he had his spinner.

  He likes it back here in the bakery where the floors are white with flour—whiter than the sooty walls and ceiling. The thick soles of his own high shoes are crusted with white and there is white in the stitching and lace-eyes, and under his nails and in the cracked chapped skin of his hands.

  He relaxes here—squatting against the wall—leaning back in a way that tilts his baseball cap with the D forward over his eyes. He likes the smell of flour, sweet dough, bread and cakes and rolls baking. The oven is crackling and makes him sleepy.

  Sweet . . . warm . . . sleep . . .

  Suddenly, falling, twisting, head hitting against the wall. Someone has kicked his legs out from under him.

  That’s all I can remember. I can see it all clearly, but I don’t know why it happened. It’s like when I used to go to the movies. The first time I never understood because they went too fast but after I saw the picture three or four times I used to understand what they were saying. I’ve got to ask Dr. Strauss about it.

  April 14—Dr. Strauss says the important thing is to keep recalling memories like the one I had yesterday and to write them down. Then when I come into his office we can talk about them.

  Dr. Strauss is a psychiatrist and a neurosurgeon. I didn’t know that. I thought he was just a plain doctor. But when I went to his office this morning, he told me about how impor­tant it is for me to learn about myself so that I can un
derstand my problems. I said I didn’t have any problems.

  He laughed and then he got up from his chair and went to the window. “The more intelligent you become the more problems you’ll have, Charlie. Your intellectual growth is going to outstrip your emotional growth. And I think you’ll find that as you progress, there will be many things you’ll want to talk to me about. I just want you to remember that this is the place for you to come when you need help.”

  I still don’t know what it’s all about, but he said even if I don’t understand my dreams or memories or why I have them, some time in the future they’re all going to connect up, and I’ll learn more about myself. He said the important thing is to find out what those people in my memories are saying. It’s all about me when I was a boy and I’ve got to remember what happened.

  I never knew about these things before. It’s like if I get intelligent enough I’ll understand all the words in my mind, and I’ll know about those boys standing in the hallway, and about my Uncle Herman and my parents. But what he means is then I’m going to feel bad about it all and I might get sick in my mind.

  So I’ve got to come into his office twice a week now to talk about the things that bother me. We just sit there, and I talk, and Dr. Strauss listens. It’s called therapy, and that means talking about things will make me feel better. I told him one of the things that bothers me is about women. Like dancing with that girl Ellen got me all excited. So we talked about it and I got a funny feeling while I was talking, cold and sweaty, and a buzzing inside my head and I thought I was going to throw up. Maybe because I always thought it was dirty and bad to talk about that. But Dr. Strauss said what happened to me after the party was a wet dream, and it’s a natural thing that happens to boys.

  So even if I’m getting intelligent and learning a lot of new things, he thinks I’m still a boy about women. It’s confusing, but I’m going to find out all about my life.