Spoonbenders

by Daryl Gregory

“There’s more to this story, Matthias. More than’s safe to tell you right now. But know this.” His voice was choked with emotion, his eyes misty.

  “Yes?” Matty asked.

  “You come from greatness,” Uncle Frankie said. “You have greatness in you. And no jackbooted tool of the American government can—”

  Matty would never know what Uncle Frankie was going to say next, because at that moment a loud bang sounded from upstairs. Mary Alice screamed, “Fire! Fire!”

  “God damn it,” Frankie said softly. He squeezed his eyes shut. Then he hustled up the stairs, shouting for everyone else to stop shouting. Matty followed him into the guest bedroom, which served double duty as a kind of utility room, crowded with boxes and laundry baskets. The padded cover to the ironing board was on fire, and the iron sat in the middle of the flames, its black cord dangling over the side, not plugged in. The three-year-old twins stood in a corner, holding hands, looking wide-eyed at the flames; not afraid so much as surprised. Mary Alice held one of Buddy’s huge shirts up in front of her, as if she was shielding herself from the heat, though she was probably thinking of smothering the flames with it.

  “Jesus, get Cassie and Polly out of here,” Frankie said to Mary Alice. He looked around the room, didn’t see what he was looking for, and then said, “Everybody out!”

  The twins bolted for the hall, and Mary Alice and Matty moved only as far as the doorway, too fascinated to leave completely. Frankie crouched beside the ironing board and picked it up by the legs, balancing the iron atop it. He carried it toward them as if it were a giant birthday cake. Mary Alice and Matty scampered ahead of him. He went down the stairs, moving deliberately despite the flames in his face. This impressed Matty tremendously. Mary Alice opened the front door for him, and he walked to the driveway and dumped the ironing board on its side. The smoking, partially melted iron bounced twice and landed bottom-side down.

  Aunt Loretta appeared from around the corner of the house, followed a moment later by Grandpa Teddy. Then Matty’s mom burst through the front door, followed by the twins. The whole family was standing in the front yard now, except for Buddy.

  “What happened?” Loretta asked Frankie.

  “Whaddya think?” Frankie said. He turned the ironing board so that it was upside down, but flames still licked at the sides. “Pack up the hellions and Mary Alice. We’re going home.”

  For months Matty couldn’t get that videotape out of his mind. It seemed to be a message from the distant past, an illuminated text glowing with the secrets of his family. He desperately wanted to ask his mother about it, but he also didn’t want to break his promise to Uncle Frankie. He resorted to asking his mother oblique questions about The Mike Douglas Show or Grandma Maureen or the government, and every time she cut him off. Even when he tried to sneak up on the topic—“Gee, I wonder what it’s like to be on TV?”—she seemed to immediately sense what was up and change the subject.

  The next time he and his mother returned to Chicago, he couldn’t find the cassette in the TV cabinet. Uncle Buddy caught him pawing through the boxes, trying each tape in the machine, fast-forwarding to make sure Mike Douglas didn’t pop up mid-tape. His uncle frowned and then slumped out of the room.

  Matty never found the tape. The next Thanksgiving Frankie didn’t seem to remember showing it to him. At holidays Matty sat around the dinner table, waiting for the adults to talk about those days, but his mother had placed some kind of embargo on the matter. Frankie would bring up something that seemed promising—a reference to Grandma Mo, or “psi war”—and Mom would fix him with a look that dropped the temperature of the room. The visits became less frequent and more strained. A couple Thanksgivings Frankie’s family didn’t show up at all, and some years Matty and his mom stayed home in Pittsburgh. Those were terrible weekends. “You’ve got a melancholy streak,” she’d tell him. If that were true, he knew where he got it from; his mother was the most melancholy person he knew.

  It was true that he was unusually nostalgic for a kid, though what he pined for was a time before he was born. He was haunted by the feeling that he’d missed the big show. The circus had packed up and left town, and he’d shown up to find nothing but a field of trampled grass. But other times, especially when Mom was feeling good, he’d be suddenly filled with confidence, like the prince of a deposed royal family certain of his claim to the throne. He’d think, Once, we were Amazing.

  Then his mother would lose another job, and they’d have to eat Kraft macaroni and cheese for weeks straight, and he’d think, Once, we were Amazing.

  And then, when he was fourteen years old, his mother lost the best job she’d ever had, and they moved back in with Grandpa Teddy, and soon afterward he found himself sitting in a closet full of his dead grandmother’s clothes, recovering from the most interesting thing that had ever happened to him. His embarrassment had faded, which made space in his body for other emotions, a thrumming mix of fear, wonder, and pride.

  He’d left his body. He’d floated eight feet off the ground. Some ceremony was called for.

  He thought for a moment, then lifted the silver dress by its hanger and addressed it. “Hiya, Grandma Mo,” he said, quiet enough that Mary Alice and her idiot friend couldn’t hear him. “Today, I am—”

  He was going to say, “Today, I am Amazing.” It was going to be a poignant moment that he would someday tell his children about. He was young Bruce Wayne vowing to avenge his parents, Superman promising to uphold his Kryptonian heritage, a Jewish boy doing whatever Jewish boys do on their Bar Mitzvahs.

  Then he noticed the shadow at the door.

  It was Uncle Buddy. He held a hammer in one hand, and a staple gun in the other. His gaze slowly moved from Matty to the closet, then back to Matty—and the dress. His eyes widened a fraction. Was he about to smile? Matty couldn’t take it if he smiled.

  “I was just putting it away!” Matty said. He thrust the gown at him and ran, frantic to escape his uncle, the room, and his body.

  2

  Teddy

  Teddy Telemachus made it a goal to fall in love at least once a day. No, fall in was inaccurate; throw himself in was more like it. Two decades after Maureen had died, the only way to keep his hollowed heart thumping was to give it a jump start on a regular basis. On summer weekends he would stroll the Clover’s garden market on North Avenue, or else wander through Wilder Park, hoping for emotional defibrillation. On weekdays, though, he relied on grocery stores. The Jewel-Osco was closest, and perfectly adequate for food shopping, but in matters of the heart he preferred Dominick’s.

  He saw her browsing thoughtfully in the organic foods aisle, an empty basket in the crook of one arm; signs of a woman filling time, not a shopping cart.

  She was perhaps in her mid-forties. Her style was deceptively simple: a plain sleeveless top, capri pants, sandals. If anyone complimented her, she’d claim she’d just thrown something on, but other women would know better. Teddy knew better. Those clothes were tailored to look casual. The unfussy leather bag hanging to her hip was a Fendi. The sandals were Italian as well. But what sent a shiver through his heart was the perfectly calibrated shade of red of her toenail polish.

  This is why he shopped at Dominick’s. You go to the Jewel on a Tuesday afternoon like this, you get old women in shiny tracksuits looking for a deal, holding soup cans up to the light, hypnotized by serving size and price per ounce. In Dominick’s, especially in the tony suburbs, your Hinsdales and your Oak Brooks, it was still possible to find classy women, women who understood how to accessorize.

  He pushed his empty cart close to her, pretending to study the seven varieties of artisanal honey.

  She hadn’t noticed him. She took a step back from the shelf and bumped into him, and he dropped the plastic honey jar to the floor. It almost happened by accident; his stiff fingers were especially balky this afternoon.

  “I’m so sorry!” she said.

  She stooped and he said, “Oh, you don’t have to do that—” and ben
t at the same time, nearly thumping heads. They both laughed. She beat him to the honey jar, scooped it up with a hand weighted down by a wedding band and ponderous diamond. She smelled of sandalwood soap.

  He accepted the jar with mock formality, which made her laugh again. He liked the way her eyes lit up amid those friendly crow’s-feet. He put her age at forty-five or -six. A good thing. He had a firm rule, which he occasionally broke: only fall in love with women whose age, at minimum, was half his own plus seven. This year he was seventy-two, which meant that the object of his devotion had to be at least forty-three.

  A young man wouldn’t have thought she was beautiful. He’d see those mature thighs and overlook her perfectly formed calves and delicate ankles. He’d focus on that strong Roman nose and miss those bright green eyes. He’d see the striations in her neck when she tilted her head to laugh and fail to appreciate a woman who knew how to abandon herself to the moment.

  Young men, in short, were idiots. Would they even feel the spark when she touched them, as he just did? A few fingers against his elbow, delicate and ostensibly casual, as if steadying herself.

  He hid his delight and assumed a surprised, concerned look.

  She dropped her hand from his arm. She was ready to ask what was wrong, but then pulled back, perhaps remembering that they were two strangers. So he spoke first.

  “You’re worried about someone,” he said. “Jay?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Or Kay? No. Someone whose name starts with ‘J.’ ”

  Her eyes widened.

  “I’m sorry, so sorry,” he said. “It’s someone close to you. That’s none of my business.”

  She wanted to ask the question, but didn’t know how to phrase it.

  “Well now,” he said, and lifted the honey jar. “Thank you for retrieving this, though I’m sure it’s not as sweet as you.” This last bit of corn served up with just enough self-awareness to allow the flirt to pass.

  He walked away without looking back. Strolled down one aisle, then drifted to the open space of the produce section.

  “My oldest son’s name is Julian,” she said. He looked up as if he hadn’t seen her coming. Her basket was still empty. After a moment, he nodded as if she’d confirmed what he suspected.

  “He has a learning disability,” she said. “He has trouble paying attention, and his teachers don’t seem to be taking it seriously.”

  “That sounds like a tough one,” he said. “A tough one all right.”

  She didn’t want to talk about the boy, though. Her question hung in the air between them. Finally she said, “How did you know about him?”

  “I shouldn’t have brought it up,” he said. “It’s just that when you touched my arm—” He tilted his head. “Sometimes I get flashes. Images. But that doesn’t mean I have to say everything that pops into my head.”

  “You’re trying to tell me you’re psychic?” Making it clear she didn’t believe in that stuff.

  “That’s a much-maligned word,” he said. “Those psychics on TV, with their nine hundred numbers? Frauds and charlatans, my dear. Con men. However…” He smiled. “I do have to admit that I misled you in one respect.”

  She raised an eyebrow, willing him to elaborate.

  He said, “I really have no need for this honey.”

  Her low, throaty laugh was nothing like Maureen’s—Mo’s rang like bells over a shop door—but he enjoyed it just the same. “I didn’t think so,” she said.

  “It seems you’ve loaded up as well.”

  She looked at the basket on her arm, then set it on the floor. “There’s a diner in this strip mall,” she said.

  “So I’ve heard.” He offered her his hand. “I’m Teddy.”

  She hesitated, perhaps fearing another joy-buzzer moment of psychic intuition. Then she relented. “Graciella.”

  Teddy became a convert to the Church of Love at First Sight in the summer of 1962, the day he walked into that University of Chicago classroom. A dozen people in the room and she was the only one he could see, a girl in a spotlight, standing with her back to him as if she were about to turn and sing into a mic.

  Maureen McKinnon, nineteen years old. Knocking him flat without even looking at him.

  He didn’t know her name yet, of course. She was thirty feet from him, talking to the receptionist sitting at the teacher’s desk at the other end of the big classroom, which was only one chamber in this faux-Gothic building. The lair of the academic made him edgy—he’d never recovered from two bad years in Catholic high school—but the girl was a light he could steer by. He drifted down the center aisle, unconscious of his feet, drinking her in: a small-boned, black-haired sprite in an A-line dress, olive green with matching gloves. Oh, those gloves. She tugged them off one finger at a time, each movement a pluck at his heartstrings.

  The secretary handed her a sheaf of forms, and the girl turned, her eyes on the topmost page, and nearly bumped into him. She looked up in surprise, and that was the coup de grace: blue eyes under black bangs. What man could defend himself against that?

  She apologized, even as he removed his hat and insisted that he was the one who was at fault. She looked at him like she knew him, which both thrilled and unnerved him. Had he conned her in the past? Surely he’d have remembered this Black Irish sweetheart.

  He checked in with the receptionist, a fiftyish woman wearing a young woman’s bouffant of bright red hair, an obvious wig. She handed him his own stack of forms, and he gave her a big smile and a “Thanks, doll.” Always good policy to befriend the secretary.

  He took a desk a little behind the girl in the olive dress so he could watch her. He assumed she was here because of the same newspaper advertisement that had drawn him to campus:

  RESEARCH SUBJECTS NEEDED FOR STUDY OF PSYCHIC PHENOMENA

  Then in smaller type:

  $5 HONORARIUM FOR INTAKE SURVEY, $20 PER DAY FOR THOSE CHOSEN FOR LONG-TERM STUDY. CENTER FOR ADVANCED COGNITIVE SCIENCE, UNIV. OF CHICAGO.

  He figured the study was the usual academic foolishness, preying on the two types of people who’d answer such an ad: the desperate and the deluded. Those four yahoos in shirtsleeves and dungarees, laughing as they hunched over their desks, egging each other on? Desperate for the dough. That mole-faced student in the cheap suit, knee bouncing, all greasy hair and thick glasses: deluded into thinking he was special. The black kid in the shirt, tie, and Sunday shoes: desperate. And the old married couple helping each other fill out the paperwork? Both.

  Teddy was here for the cash. But what about the girl? What was her story?

  Teddy kept checking on her while he filled out his paperwork. The first few forms asked for demographic information, some of which he made up. It only got interesting a few pages in, when they started asking true-false questions like “I sometimes know what people are going to say before they say it.” And “Watches and electrical devices sometimes stop working in my presence,” which was followed twenty items later by “Watches and electrical devices that were broken sometimes start working in my presence.” Pure silliness. He finished quickly, then carried his clipboard to the front of the room and handed it to the red-wigged secretary.

  “Is that it?” he asked.

  “The five-dollar check will be mailed to the address you put on the form,” she said.

  “No, I mean, the rest of the study? What happens after this?”

  “Oh, you’ll be contacted if you’re one of the ones chosen.”

  He smiled. “Oh, I think they’re going to want to talk to me.”

  “That’s up to Dr. Eldon.”

  “Who’s he?”

  She seemed a little put out by this. “This is his project.”

  “Oh! Wait, is he a big guy, kinda heavy, with Einstein hair and big square glasses?”

  A hit. A palpable hit. “Have you already met with the doctor?” she asked.

  “No, no. It’s just…well, when I was filling out the forms I kept getting this image. Somebody who was real
ly interested in what was happening here today. It kept popping up, so I started doodling. May I?” He held out his hand for the clipboard he’d just given her. He flipped back a few pages. “Is that him?”

  Teddy was no artist, but he could cartoon well enough for his purposes. In fact, it helped if you weren’t too good, too accurate. What he’d drawn was little more than a circle to suggest a fat face, a couple of squares for the glasses, and a wild scribble of hair above.

  The receptionist gave him the look he liked to get, confusion taking the slow elevator to amazement.

  He lowered his voice. “And the weird thing is? I kept picturing me in a meeting with him. Him, me, and that girl—” He nodded toward the girl in the olive dress with the black hair and the blue eyes. “All of us sitting around a table, smiling.”

  “Oh,” the receptionist said.

  “This is why I need to be in this study,” he said earnestly. “This kinda thing happens to me all the time.”

  He didn’t mention that this kind of thing happened usually in bars, when there were a few bucks on the line. Fleecing fivers out of drunks was easy, but no way to earn a living. It was time to upgrade his act.

  When he saw that ad in the Sun-Times, he realized that his first step should be to get certified as the real thing by real scientists. He made sure to do his homework before he showed up: a visit to the U of C library; a few questions about the Center for Advanced Cognitive Science; a quick flip through the faculty directory to see a picture of Dr. Horace Eldon; and voilà. One soon-to-be psychic flash, complete with doodle. The last bit, adding the girl into his precognitive vision, was a late improvisation.

  He left the classroom without saying another word to the girl. Yet he knew, with an unexplainable certainty, that they’d meet again.

  Graciella was a woman ready to talk. While their coffees steamed in front of them he asked many questions, and she answered at length, which seemed to surprise her; he got the impression of a tightly wound woman, normally guarded, who was playing hooky from her internal truant officer.