by M. O. Walsh
On his way out, though, Douglas saw Jacob Richieu, one of his best students, standing in the line. He held a grocery bag in his hand and wore a black cap pulled low and Douglas noticed he’d been growing darker recently. It wasn’t that gothy stuff, really, but he was just kind of sullen and withdrawn, maybe a little angry. Who could blame him? And who knew if it would last?
As a high school teacher, Douglas had borne witness to hordes of teens staking their unfortunate claims to style at that age, sophomores and juniors, mainly, prematurely casting themselves in the movies of their future. And what would Jacob’s movie be? He had that skinny look of a whiz kid. He wore the Pokémon hat of a gamer, of a loner, and maybe that’s what he was since his brother died.
His brother. Toby.
Not as sharp a student as Jacob, Douglas remembered, but he was a charming guy, a nice enough kid, even though he ran with some of the jocks that Douglas wouldn’t trust with a pair of scissors. Still, his death was a tragedy, no doubt. That had to account for some of Jacob’s darkness. Being the son of the mayor could be hard, too. And that girl he was now palling around with, that Trina. Douglas felt she was the type that might know exactly what to do with scissors.
“Jacob,” Douglas said, walking toward him. “How are you?”
Jacob stood near the front of the line. He looked almost embarrassed to be found. He glanced around the store as if he’d forgotten where he was and pulled his earbuds out of his ears. “Hey, Mr. Hubbard,” he said. “I haven’t done the reading for tomorrow yet, if that’s what you’re going to ask.”
Douglas smiled and said, “That’s okay. I know you’re on top of things.” He looked at the woman behind them in line and nodded, just being polite. “So, you going in this machine, too?”
“No,” Jacob said. “I just love standing in long lines.”
“Ouch,” Douglas said. This new attitude from Jacob: What was behind it?
“I’m sorry,” Jacob said. “I’ve just been standing here for an hour. I should go home.”
“Yikes,” Douglas said. “Does it take that long?”
Before Jacob could answer, they heard the curtains open back up and the last woman who’d entered step out. She had been crying in there, Douglas could tell, and said nothing as she left the store, merely crossing herself as if leaving Confession.
“It only takes a minute,” Jacob said. “I just haven’t been able to pull the trigger. I keep going to the back of the line.”
“Understandable,” Douglas said. “But I’m not convinced about this thing, myself. What are you hoping it will say?”
“No clue,” Jacob said. “I think that’s my problem.”
Another person stepped into the machine and Douglas realized Jacob was next.
“No matter what it says,” Douglas told him, “I wouldn’t worry too much about it. After all,” he whispered, “it’s made of plywood.”
“I’m sure it’s just a beta-testing case,” Jacob said. “You have to start somewhere. I mean, the first airplane was made of paper, wasn’t it? The first car was a horse.”
Douglas looked at Jacob and felt a familiar ache for this boy. He’d felt this way in class before, whenever Jacob gave an answer that was somehow sharp, worldly, and wistful. Complain as he may about high schoolers, Douglas knew some of his kids had much older souls than they should, much larger inner lives than he gave them credit for. And if he’d had a son of his own, maybe that was the feeling, if he had a son of his own, he might like him to have a mind like Jacob’s. This made Douglas think more deeply into the boy’s life, about his mother who’d passed when he and his brother were born, about the way his father had raised them by himself while also suffering so much, and the way his father still gave so much to the town. It was empathy Douglas felt, he supposed, whenever he looked at Jacob. It was respect.
In front of them, the curtain pulled open again and the woman stepped out.
She held her blue receipt and said, “Five years ago. Where was this thing five years ago?”
Douglas then watched her hobble out of the store, the right leg, below her knee, a prosthetic.
“I guess you’re next,” Douglas said.
“Nah,” Jacob said, and handed Douglas his two dollars. “You take my place. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jacob then walked out of the store, not bothering to hop back in line.
Douglas stood there with the two dollars in his hand and looked back at the woman behind him. She had her eyebrows raised, as if waiting for him to say something, and Douglas realized that all the people in the line were looking at him.
“Well,” one of them said, “if you’re going to skip, you might as well be quick about it.”
The woman behind him nudged Douglas ahead. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It ain’t gonna bite you.”
“Oh,” Douglas said. “I’m not really interested.”
“I’ve got two kids in the car,” the woman said. “Let’s giddyup, okay?”
So, as if succumbing to nothing more than peer pressure, Douglas stepped inside the machine and closed the curtain behind him. He turned around.
What did we have here?
The machine looked built by a child. In front of him, the display screen appeared to be little more than a simple computer monitor mounted in plywood, along with slots cut into the wood beneath it. One was recognizable as a place to put your money, the kind you might see on an arcade game or ATM, and another appeared to be the place your printout came through. To the side of that, another slot read “Deposit Sample Here.”
With all the visual evidence before him, Douglas couldn’t help himself. He cracked up laughing. This machine had a serious ethos problem. No credibility whatsoever. So, what he would do was simply this: He would put in his money and get his readout just to say he did it. He wouldn’t even look at it. This way, depending how his conversation with Cherilyn went, he could show her he tried it and they could laugh over whatever silly thing it had spat out. Or, perhaps even better, they could rejoice together when it said what he knew it would say, which was: TROMBONIST. JAZZ MASTER. EXTRAORDINAIRE.
He slid his two dollars into the slot and watched the screen brighten. Welcome to DNAMIX, it read. Please begin by swabbing your cheek. Douglas looked down to see a pile of Q-tips set in a basket. Ridiculous, he thought, but still he followed the prompts to remove the plastic and swab the inside of his cheek. He then slid the Q-tip into the prescribed opening, where it seemed to just drop from his hand. Your receipt is ready, the screen read. Thank you. Remember that there is a 1 percent margin of error. DNAMIX is not liable for any stress your potential may cause. Have a nice day.
Douglas watched a blue slip of paper print out from the slot. He ripped it loose and stuck it in his pocket without looking. He then turned and exited the machine and saw the people in line eyeing him expectantly, as if he might click his heels on some good news. So, Douglas felt compelled to say something. He held up his grocery bag.
“Wish me luck, everyone,” he said. “I am off to eat eggplant.”
Douglas left the store and, before he even got to his car, felt his conviction beginning to waver. The possibility of his readout crept upon him like gossip, and it was difficult for him not to be interested. The little paper in his pocket. What could it be? He realized he was touching it, rubbing it between his fingers, and it suddenly reminded him of Tolkien’s precious ring from Middle-earth, which was another thing, he teacher-moded to himself, that was total fantasy.
He got into his car, put the groceries on the floorboard, and quickly folded his readout into the same compartment that Cherilyn had stashed hers. “Ludicrous,” he said, and put the car in reverse.
Yet he didn’t take his foot off the brake.
“It’s made of plywood and Q-tips,” he said, and shifted the car back into park.
Then drive again. Then park.
> Thereabout went his next five minutes, starting and stopping, his hand and foot operating against each other in the same way his mind was combating itself. And it is difficult to win an argument with a History teacher, so, when it was all said and done, Douglas relinquished to a phrase he often told his students, which was, “There is no shame in not knowing something. The shame, instead,” he would say, “is in having the opportunity to learn and choosing ignorance.” He’d made that one up, as far as he knew, and it often worked for a couple of weeks as far as class discussion was concerned. It was logical. It was pretty passionate. And so Douglas reached for the readout.
What he wanted, he’d decided, was for the readout to say something random, something outlandish. If it told him to be a QUARTERBACK or a PALM TREE or even a HYPOTENUSE, then that would settle it all. He could talk Cherilyn off her royal cliff and the thing would be done with. He could tell her that she had always been his queen and he would mean this as he said it and maybe that would do the trick. He unfolded the slip of paper and read it.
Douglas Alan Hubbard. Yes, that was true.
A long series of numbers. Eye color brown. Hair color brown. Potential height 6’2”.
Douglas put down the paper. He straightened his back and looked in the rearview mirror.
“Six-two?” he said. He was five-ten at best.
He picked it up and read further. Potential weight 195. No potential children listed, and then, beneath all of this, he saw “Potential Life Station.” Unlike the single proclamation he’d seen on the other readouts, however, his had two words written in bold:
WHISTLER. TEACHER.
He stared at it awhile.
WHISTLER. TEACHER.
This was unexpected.
It was also, Douglas felt, awfully specific.
He did not like this readout at all.
He felt his chest tighten as if he was about to get in a fistfight, and he did not move an inch. And who knows how long Douglas could have sat there glaring at that little piece of paper if his phone had not gone off in his pocket. This made him look around the car absently, as if there might have been someone else in it who’d suddenly disappeared. He did not check his phone but instead crumpled the paper up in his hand, threw the car into gear, and said, “Please.”
He pulled out of the lot without slowing down for the speed bumps and felt himself growing hot. His ears burned, the back of his neck tingled, and, rather than experiencing any sort of excitement or humor, Douglas felt an overwhelming sense of fear taking hold of him.
How could that be? he wondered. Whistler? Teacher? It was likely a joke. The whole thing was preposterous. But what about Cherilyn and Geoffrey? Why wasn’t their readout what they already were? What the hell is DNA, anyway? Six feet two? How could Whistler even be an option? Do they have one for Thumb Twiddler, too? Insanity. Maybe they get your Social Security Number and then your W-2, he thought. There’s no privacy anymore. Everybody knows that. Hackers can get anything they want. That could explain the Teacher part. But why was Trombonist not on there? Why not Musician? Why not Artist?
It was, Douglas believed, complete and utter bullshit.
This machine had nothing to do with potential, and it definitely had nothing to do with dreams. What did this printout even mean? What was the suggestion? Even if you granted it the least bit of credibility, what was the implication? That Douglas had already become the best version of himself that he could be? That didn’t seem right. He ran a stop sign. Did it mean that if things would have gone perfectly, he would still be the exact same man he is today, only a slightly taller version of himself? This idea angered him, too. It seemed grossly unfair. Insultingly surface. Hell, it even seemed undemocratic. Worst of all, it seemed to immediately pry the gap between he and Cherilyn even wider. The only thing he wanted in life, he realized, more than any glowing trombone, was to feel as secure and comfortable with Cherilyn as he had just a few days before. Before he knew about her readout. Before she’d begun feeling sick. Before she had requested something of him which he failed to provide. He wanted all of this back, and yet seeing his own readout made the possibility of their reconnection seem more remote than he had ever imagined it. He entered his neighborhood and drove right past his house. He then made the block and drove past it again. For the first time in his life, he realized, he felt ashamed to face his wife.
So, he stopped the car and pulled out his phone and, seeing that the last call was from Cherilyn’s mother’s house, did not even check the voicemail. It would be from Cherilyn, he knew, and what could he say to her now? That he was maxed out? That this was the best her life would ever get if she continued to slum it with him? That he could offer nothing more than he’d already given? No. That wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all. So, instead of calling her back, he did something that he had never done before. He dialed his own house, knowing that no one would answer, and lied to the family machine.
12
I’m Taking a Walk, I’m Just Getting By
The walk back to town wasn’t all bad.
Would he have rather had his truck? Possibly. His work uniform, with its starched black shirt and pants, wasn’t exactly comfortable. His black sneakers, though, special-ordered from the Catholic Warehouse in New Orleans, were okay. Nice padded soles. Extra wide. Good laces. Still, you couldn’t deny the heat. Pete could do without the heat. Yet when Lanny had rested his shotgun on his shoulder and leaned on Pete’s driver’s-side door to ask, “Now, Pete, what would your bossman do in a situation like this one?” Pete knew he had a point. It reminded him of one of his favorite moments from seminary, actually: a day when Pete grilled one of his professors about charity and its relationship to knowledge.
Here was the hypothetical, as Pete had drawn it up in class:
Say you came to a stoplight and saw two men standing on opposite sides of the road—one to your left and one to your right—and the man on your left asked you for a dollar. Say you recognized this man from church, from Confession perhaps, and knew that he was a drug abuser trying to get clean. Maybe he had a family, kids counting on him, all that. Let’s say you also knew that the man on your right was a drug dealer. How could you have known this about him without assuming? Well, let’s say he was blatantly waving a bag of drugs in his hand and yelling across the street to the man on your left that he would sell him this bag of drugs for only one dollar, which was, perhaps not coincidentally, the exact amount of money the drug abuser had asked you for. Let’s also say that you could clearly see a needle and syringe sitting on the little cardboard box or lawn chair or whatever it was the man on your left had been begging from. Now, you know the man could use more than a dollar. He could use a good meal and a shower and so you offer him that. You offer to take him into your own home, even, but he declines and says nope, that he only wants the one dollar and he needs it right away, please, before a golden opportunity passes him by.
Now, Pete continued, you understand that charity is supposed to be blind. We all know that. However, in this particular situation, you yourself are not blind and you know (you aren’t assuming, remember, you actually know) that giving this man a dollar will unequivocally enable him to do the very thing that destroys him.
“So,” Pete had said, “I guess what I’m wondering is, in this hypothetical situation, would you still be obliged to give it to him? If you had hard evidence that one-dollar bill would go straight into his arm, would that still be charity? Would that be willful ignorance? Or,” Pete asked, “might that possibly be some form of malice?”
His professor let the question hang in the air for a while, the way all the good ones do, so that it could gather its proper importance from the physical space it was allowed, so that the slower thinkers in class could catch up, and then said, placidly, “Are you asking what Jesus might do in a situation like this one, Mr. Flynn?”
“I suppose I am,” Pete said.<
br />
“Well,” his professor told him. “I imagine Jesus might be curious to know how you still had a dollar left to give when you pulled up to that stoplight.”
This answer kicked something loose in Pete. It wobbled his brain. It filled his heart. The purity of it. The bold simplicity.
How had he not seen it coming?
He’d long been the one in class to take a more practical, living-world view of the priesthood, so these types of back-and-forth with his professors were common enough. While others might have sought some type of spiritual enlightenment or perhaps even bookish confirmation of their faith from seminary, Pete had distinguished himself by seeking answers to how he could apply his belief. After all, he had clear goals for his priesthood. He had people he needed to see again. This wasn’t some philosophical pursuit. He’d therefore gone through dozens of these mental exercises both in school and with his younger peers at coffee shops, but the answer to this affected him like none before. It was as if a new picture, some clear and physical drawing of God, had been projected for him on the whiteboard.
“Total charity,” Pete replied. “It is about total charity.”
“Charity before the need for it,” his professor said, and moved on.
Pete said nothing for the rest of the class.
Memories like this helped ease the walk back to town from Lanny’s house, helped ease the doubts he sometimes had about himself, about people in general. This version of charity remains to Pete the most challenging demand he’s ever heard, and it thrills him to consider it. It was another reason why Pete felt his job was pretty wonderful, when you thought about it. It was not for the weak. But it was also the way that particular anecdote unfolded that Pete admired. It was the way it allowed you to think you knew your problem (should I or shouldn’t I?) before Jesus ambled up and broke the whole thing open (why haven’t you already?) that he loved. Jesus did this a lot, which is another reason why he, too, Pete thought, was pretty wonderful. But it was also the way the story fit so nicely within Pete’s own personal version of godliness that gave him comfort. This was not a dogmatic I am right and you are wrong way of thinking, but instead a holistic understanding that there is both a before you and a before now in the physical sense and an always you and an always now in the metaphysical sense. It was the way that we are eternal in our own consciousness, if not in our earthly bodies, and how every choice we make today is an extension of, and an opportunity arisen from, the choices we have previously made and will make in the future that defines us. And it is how this boundless aspect of our existence, when all the chips have been counted, is likely the way that we are most constructed in God’s own image.