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“If we study the pages of history we find that
they are traversed as with a red thread by the doctrine of the necessity
of warlike capacity in a people.
But just as lightning equalizes the tension in two differently charged
strata of the air, so will the sword always be, and remain till the
end of the world, the finally decisive factor.”
- Friedrich Wilhelm Victor August Ernst
“Duck season!”
- Bugs Bunny
“Wabbit season!!”
- Elmer Fudd
Chapter ONE: Two Bookends On A Couch
Timothy Tangier Shoemaker is eight years old. He is the product of Lois
Franklin and Sidney Shoemaker, two prodigies from the 60's who sold out
polygamy to buy property in Steep Falls, Connecticut during a time in
which domesticity was terribly unfashionable.
The most precious gift endowed from the unpopular arrangement is their
son Timothy, who shows a lot of what Lois refers to as 'promise.'
Timothy's favorite color in contrast to white is the color red. His favorite
color placed against black is yellow. Without context, he has no favorites.
He will always be this way. Timothy loves balance, spreading his fingers
and always walking a line. Someday, he hopes to join the circus to be
a tight ropewalker so he can stay as far up at night as he wants to. Until
then he wishes to work as an astronaut or a fossil hunter. He kills quite
a lot of fossils in that little head of his. Shoots em' dead.
Timothy has a prodigy of his own, the slingshot potential of his six year
old brother Jackson whose favorite color is triceratops. Jackson has no
stipulations of context because he can't imagine a world without one.
He is devoted to a small number of beliefs: that wheels should have 7
sides, the strangest or most dangerous animals should be considerably
larger in person, and words should be spelled as such that one can derive
their meaning from the order and identification of their letters contained.
To the boy's credit, he can also spell exceptionally well; acing words
that to this day have had little or no meaning. For example: C-O-N-S-I-D-E-R-A-B-L-Y.
Jackson shows a lot of what his mother Lois likes to call 'Asperger's
syndrome.'
Needless to say the brothers enjoy each-other's company. They often run
along in the yard and invent new ways of keeping the sun from setting
with whatever tools they can find in the thick of a fresh cut lawn. You
can often catch them napping on the same couch like bookends on an empty
shelf.
One stormy day, with rain crashing heavily against the living-room windows,
the two boys retreat underneath a fort they built with bed sheets and
thumbtacks. They rub and warm their hands over a flashlight in the personal
accommodations draped from the couch to the dry fireplace.
Timothy holds the spotlight close to his face for a dramatic effect. Jackson
feels that not only is it appropriate, but a defining aesthetic for the
scene forthcoming.
"You know why we're here?" asks Timothy with extreme pride,
knowing the answer to his question is no more free to walk away then Dad
questioned by Mom about the smell in the garage.
"It's dry here. Sometimes it's fun to play inside." Jackson
fidgets with his hands. He's always trying to invent something new with
the shape of his fingers.
"Fun." The single syllable falls like a spent match. Timothy
clicks his tongue as close to subtlety as his age allows. That's about
6 years from subtlety. However, to his younger brother, a clever dramatic
has caught his attention.
"What do you want to do?"
Timothy tries to ignore his brother. He stands up from the couch and approaches
the window. He places an open hand just inches from the pane to feel the
cold and remarks, "Jack, I never wanted to tell you this."
Jackson is innocently confused, "tell me what?"
"Never mind." Timothy brings his hand closer to the window and
quickly pulls it away. He can feel the stare from his brother's eyes like
the look Mom gives Grammy over the telephone. The timing is perfect, "I
over heard Mom and Dad talking, they said you're a robot."
Jackson wrinkles everything six years has to offer in his face "Shut
up!"
Timothy lifts a single finger to his lips, then carries it a foot from
his face and breaks it apart as if he is drawing a conclusion, "I'm
not saying anything. I'm just saying Mom and Dad were talking a couple
nights ago, and I sorta heard some things that would leave me to believe
that you're a robot."
Jackson can't take the pressure, this time his brother is going further
than insulting his intelligence. It is his very humanity on the stand,
with a bible bigger than his imagination waiting for five unwashed fingers.
"You are a fat liar." The younger brother makes sure that all
five words cut like blades. Normally he would have taken the time to fashion
all the letters into darts and arrows, but when a 6 year old gets upset,
he can rarely refrain from spilling a reaction as fast as chocolate milk
on the kitchen counter. Regardless, each word is formidable in the right
hands:
YOU: The Scimitar.
ARE: Nunchucks.
A: Katana. (The samurai's sword)
FAT: Chainsaw.
LIAR: A switchblade hidden underneath four inches of miniskirt on a twelve
dollar red eye tranny whore. (Jackson has liberal parents and has already
watched a lot of HBO programming that you would probably be surprised
to know he's seen.)
"You know, for the first few years, I was going to deactivate you."
Confesses Timothy as he looks away like a pirate who no longer wants to
share his treasure map.
Jackson focuses on details, "what did Mom say?!?"
" Something about batteries, too expensive"
Jackson huffs in an out like a pregnant woman trapped in an elevator,
"So I'm almost drained? I'm draining?"
"I think Mom's words were 'his days are numbers.'" Timothy feels
confident that he is older than his brother.
"What do you mean?" cries out Jackson. His better reason suffers
a pile driver between the fat angry thighs of fear.
Timothy paces three steps to and fro, scratching a beard far ahead it's
time, "it's not like a nine volt, and it's very high tech. I'm talking
NASA times ten. They might not even make your model anymore.”
Jackson keeps his hands in his pockets. He has three uneducated guesses
about where the batteries might go. One is his nose, and another is his
mouth.
He squeezes tearful words out of his face, begging from the corners of
a sponge, "I don't want to be a dead robot!"
Timothy finally finishes tying the carrot to his line "well there
is one way, but you probably don't even want to know it."
"Know what?"
"Too dangerous."
"Maybe I should just wait till my birthday, Mom'll buy me some batter-"
"You'll be inactive by then. Wiped clean." Timothy puts his
hands together while Jackson cries like a six-year-old boy.
A deep thunder rolls through the arteries of their house. The storm has
grown thick and dark as if the sky swallowed the ashes of the tallest
forest. The thunder rolls again and all nine pins fall haphazardly down
a jagged bottomless pit, and with this most proper cue, Timothy shuts
off the flash-light and leans close to his trembling bother.
"Tell you what Jack, I'm going to fix you up."[B]
JEFF BURNS |
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