The Impossible Fortress

by Jason Rekulak

  Clark nodded. “We have to distract the dog. Get his attention on something else.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “How do we do that?”

  “Leave that to us,” he said. “You keep playing with Mary’s software, and we’ll take care of the rest.”

  900 REM *** CONTROL HERO ***

  910 JS=PEEK(56321) AND 15

  920 IF JS=7 THEN HX=HX+2

  930 IF HX>255 THEN HX=255

  940 IF JS=11 THEN HX=HX-2

  950 IF HX<24 THEN HX=24

  960 IF JS=13 THEN HY=HY+2

  970 IF HY>229 THEN HY=229

  980 IF JS=14 THEN HY=HY-2

  990 IF HY<50 THEN HY=50

  995 RETURN

  THE NEXT MORNING I biked three miles to the nearest mall with a B. Dalton and bought my own copy of How to Learn Machine Language in 30 Days so I could study it during class. I didn’t get to school until eleven o’clock, so I headed to the office to pick up a late slip. Over the years I’d become an expert at forging excuse notes from my mother. Normally the school secretary barely looked at them; she’d just check my name off the attendance grid and send me on my way.

  But this day, something was different.

  “Sorry I’m late,” I said, pushing my note across the counter. “Doctor’s visit.”

  The secretary raised her eyebrows. “Wait here.”

  She left her desk, tapped on the door of the principal’s office, and ducked inside. A moment later, she returned. “Mr. Hibble wants to see you.”

  “It was a doctor’s visit,” I repeated.

  She nodded. “You can go right in.”

  I hadn’t spoken to Hibble since the beginning of the school year, when my mother dragged me into his office to protest my class schedule. I found him seated behind his desk, rereading my note with a bemused grin. He was short, barely five four, and my classmates nicknamed him “the Duke” because he wore jacked-up cowboy boots and spoke with a southern-fried twang. His walls were decorated with numerous diplomas and a framed photograph of Hibble standing beside Kenny Rogers.

  “Don’t just stand there,” he called. “Come in and sit, Billy. We’ve been waiting for you.”

  I stepped inside. Sitting across from Mr. Hibble was my mother. Her eyes were puffy and she was clutching a balled-up Kleenex. In the middle of Hibble’s desk was a brown paper bag with my name scrawled on the side. All at once I realized what had gone wrong: in my haste to get to the mall, I’d left the house without my lunch.

  The only available chair in the office was beside my mother. I sat without looking at her. Hibble put on his glasses and read aloud from my note: “ ‘Please forgive Billy’s tardiness. He had an appointment with our physician to discuss an ongoing medical debilitation.’ ” Then he sat back in his chair and nodded. “Very impressive note, Billy. Lots of big words.”

  I didn’t say anything. One thing I’d learned is that no answer will ever satisfy an angry adult. Anything you say is bound to make them angrier, so the best response was always no response.

  “School started three hours ago,” Hibble said. “Where were you?”

  “At the mall.”

  He nodded like this made total sense.

  “Why were you at the mall? What’s so important that you had to skip school and go to the mall?”

  “Nothing.”

  I didn’t dare mention the machine language book, not after my mother had taken away my computer privileges.

  “Nothing?”

  “I was just looking around and stuff.”

  Again he nodded, like this was precisely the answer he’d expected. My poor mother sighed long and loud. As bad as I felt, I knew she felt a hundred times worse.

  “Your grade point average is zero point eight. A D-plus. You’ve been late to school nineteen times this year. Your teachers say you’re bored, disinterested. You don’t like learning. You don’t like schoolwork. And that is totally fine, Billy.”

  I looked up, surprised. Totally fine?

  “Academics aren’t for everyone. Not everyone can go to Rutgers or Penn State or even community college. That’s what I tried to explain to your mother last fall, when you asked about Honors classes. You’re obviously not ready. And that’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay,” Mom said. “If he worked harder, if he applied himself . . .”

  Hibble shook his head. “ ‘You can teach an elephant to tap-dance, but you won’t enjoy the show and neither will the elephant.’ ” He spoke like this was some time-tested adage, but my mother stared back in bewilderment.

  “I don’t know what that means,” she said. “Is that an expression? Is Billy the elephant?”

  “These are his state assessment tests,” Hibble said, pushing my transcripts across his desk. “Every child in New Jersey takes this test. Eighty-three percent of ninth graders outperformed Billy on this exam. And that’s okay. We’re not here to blame Billy for his intellectual shortcomings.”

  My mother stared at the transcript like it was written in a foreign language, like she simply couldn’t make sense of it. I’d always hated the state assessment tests, with their stupid questions and their fill-in-the-bubble answer sheets. After an hour of coloring the little circles, I felt ready to jump out the window—and the test lasted three days.

  Mom pushed back the transcript. “So what happens now?”

  “That depends on Billy.” Hibble turned to me. “You’re graduating in three years, son. What do you want to do after high school?”

  I shrugged and looked over his shoulder, praying the whole thing would soon be over. I didn’t dare tell him about Planet Will Software or my plan to become a successful programmer, like Fletcher Mulligan of Digital Artists. I knew Hibble would just laugh.

  “Answer the question, Billy.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “He’s only fourteen,” Mom said.

  “He needs a goal,” Hibble said. “Work without a goal is just spinning wheels. It’s wasting energy.”

  I tried to think of a bullshit answer that would satisfy Hibble and came up short.

  “We’re not leaving this office until we’ve found a goal,” he said. “Have you thought about the army?”

  I shook my head. I’d seen enough movies to believe the military was full of men like Hibble, that the army would be a lifetime of ugly encounters just like this one. “No army.”

  “How about Food World?” Hibble asked. “Do you want to work with your mother on the cash register?”

  “Billy’s not doing that,” Mom said.

  “He has to do something,” Hibble said, raising his voice. “He’s failing ninth grade, and the rules say I need to hold him back. Make him repeat the grade all over again. If you want me to ignore the rules and move him forward, I need to know what he’s moving toward. Where is he going?”

  The situation was more dire than I thought. I never realized there was any risk of repeating ninth grade. No one was ever held back at Wetbridge High—not even Greg Kuba, who came to school with a padded helmet and a diaper under his Wranglers. The threat scared me into telling the truth.

  “I’m going to make video games,” I said. “I’m going to start my own company, and I’ll only hire cool people. Or I’ll go work for somebody cool like Fletcher Mulligan of Digital Artists. He’s in California, but I’d move there for the job.”

  Hibble was grinning before I’d even finished. I might as well have said that I wanted to be an astronaut, or president of the United States. “A computer programmer? Is that a joke?”

  “He’s serious,” Mom said.

  “You’re failing math, Billy! Not Pre-Calc, not even Algebra. You’re failing C-track! The basics! Pie charts and number lines!” I felt my face turning redder and redder. I knew I should have kept my mouth shut, because Hibble was really piling it on: “Think for a minute, Billy. What college is going to teach you programming?”

  And he was right, sure he was right. I knew no college would ever want me—but that was okay, bec
ause I didn’t want them. “I’ll teach myself.”

  Hibble leaned across his desk and raised his voice, like he was desperate to get through to me. “That’s not how it works. You think brain surgeons teach themselves? Or lawyers?” He gestured to the boxy TRS-80 computer on his desk. “I’ve spent three years on this machine, and I still can’t get it to print. And I went to Brown, understand? The best of the Ivies! There are some things you can’t teach yourself.”

  I knew TRS-80s were famously difficult to configure; I had read all about them in my hobby magazines, where readers disparaged the machines as “TRaSh-80s.” The solution to Hibble’s problem appeared to be “daisy-chaining” the peripherals—basically, connecting the printer to the computer via the stand-alone disk drive. This was not nearly as hard or as complicated as it sounds. But I sure wasn’t going to tell Hibble the secret.

  “Maybe Billy could try a programming class,” Mom said. “If we encouraged this interest . . .”

  Hibble shook his head. “Limited machines, limited enrollment. I save those seats for our best and brightest. Not kids flunking ninth grade. Not kids who cut class to go to the mall.”

  Round and round we went, in a discussion that seemed to last hours. Every time I opened my mouth, I was wrong. Out of nowhere, my mother started sobbing. She’d been awake all night, selling groceries to insomniacs, and this argument was way past her bedtime. Even I was worn-out, and I’d only been awake a few hours. I started agreeing with everything Hibble said. I just wanted to leave. When he finally said, “I think I have a solution,” I nearly answered with Yes, anything, please just get me out of here.

  Hibble produced two xeroxed flyers from his desk and gave one to each of us. The headline promised EXCITING CAREERS IN MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY. “There’s a summer internship at the Cosmex plant on Route 9. It doesn’t pay any money—you have to volunteer—but I want you to think of it like a foot in the door. If you show up on time, if you work hard and impress the right people, you can have a decent job waiting at graduation. They start full-timers at seven fifty an hour.”

  My mother turned the flyer front and back, searching for some missing component. “A makeup factory?”

  “A world-class facility,” Hibble said. “The operations manager is my brother-in-law. I’ve taken tours. They can make ten thousand lipsticks an hour. Can you imagine?”

  The flyer featured photographs of men and women dressed in hairnets and standing over assembly lines, smiling cheerfully as they pressed tiny mirrors into tiny plastic compacts. The program ran for eight weeks, forty hours a week. At the end of it, I would receive a Special Certificate of Achievement. “Which will look very good on a resume,” Hibble added.

  “I’ve never heard of Cosmex,” Mom said.

  “They make high-quality generics at affordable prices. Like L’Oréal or Maybelline but half the cost. And Billy would be eligible for the ten percent employee discount.” He winked at my mother, and she pressed her hands against the sides of her head, like she was trying to steady her thoughts.

  So there were my choices: repeat the ninth grade or take the internship and advance to tenth grade. And I knew from my mother’s sobbing that repeating the ninth grade was not an option. I accepted a gold-plated fountain pen from Hibble and completed the Internship Commitment form, agreeing to show up on June 28 for a summer’s worth of volunteer work, and my mother countersigned.

  Hibble’s eyes followed our hands as they moved across the paperwork. “You’re making the right choice,” he said. “So I’m going to reduce your punishment to a single day’s suspension.”

  “Punishment for what?” Mom asked.

  “Playing hooky,” Hibble said, gesturing to my brown bag lunch. “Remember?”

  Mom spoke very slowly. “You’re sending him home as a punishment for skipping school?”

  “Actions have consequences!” Hibble said. “If you don’t beat the cream, Mrs. Marvin, how do you expect it to froth?”

  We left the school and drove home in silence. While climbing the steps to our front door, Mom tripped and nearly fell. “I have to go to sleep,” she muttered. “I have to get up for work in three hours.”

  She trudged into her bedroom and closed the door. I was glad I didn’t have to spend my suspension sitting across from her. I could easily pass the afternoon reading How to Learn Machine Language in 30 Days. But then her bedroom door opened and she emerged carrying the power box for my 64.

  “You really know how to work this machine?” she asked. “You promise you’re not playing Pac-Man?”

  “I promise,” I said. “I swear to God.”

  She gave me the box. “Then get to work.”

  1000 REM *** DRAW PRINCESS SPRITE ***

  1010 POKE 52,48:POKE 56,48

  1020 FOR PR=0 TO 62:READ P

  1030 POKE 12416+PR,P

  1040 NEXT PR

  1050 POKE 2042,194:POKE V+21,4

  1060 POKE V+41,3

  1070 POKE V+4,PX

  1080 POKE V+5,PY

  1090 RETURN

  MARY TOLD ME THAT she started work right after school, so I biked over to the store at three o’clock. I didn’t want to appear overeager, but the deadline was looming and every minute counted. I entered the store and the tiny bell signaled my arrival.

  Zelinsky looked up from his work desk. He was busy prying apart another ancient typewriter; his hands and forearms were black with ink.

  “She’s not here,” he said.

  I was so flustered, I didn’t know what to say. I never considered that Mary might bail on me, that her invitation was never less than completely sincere.

  “She’s at Crenshaw’s,” Zelinsky said. Crenshaw’s was the pharmacy across the street, next door to the train station. “She’ll be back in a minute.”

  “All right,” I said.

  I waited for Zelinsky to tell me what to do. Instead he just returned to work. He wedged a screwdriver in the open cavity of the typewriter and tugged backward, pulling harder and harder until something cracked and tiny plastic shards ricocheted off the walls. One of the fragments struck me in the forehead, just above my eyebrows. The pain was hot and quick, like a bee sting. I didn’t mean to cry out but couldn’t help myself.

  “Careful!” Zelinsky snapped, shooing me away with his fingers. “Go stand someplace else. You’re too close.”

  I decided this was an invitation to stick around until Mary returned. I paced in front of the news rack, reading the headlines on all of the tabloids and magazines. Bernard Goetz was on trial for shooting four youths on a subway train. Gary Hart resigned from his presidential campaign after admitting to an affair with Donna Rice. More and more people were dying from the mysterious AIDS virus. I didn’t know the details behind any of these stories, and I didn’t really care. The only magazines I read were full of computer code.

  Beside the cash register were two glass cases—one filled with boxes of cigars, the other with new and antique cigarette lighters. There were all different colors and brands—Zippo, Dunlap, Penguin, and Scripto—and many were decorated with icons and military insignia. I was astounded to see that some of these lighters sold for as much as $300 or $400. I reached for the door of the case to take a better look, but it wouldn’t open.

  “No touching,” Zelinsky said. “Don’t touch anything you’re not going to buy.”

  “Sorry,” I told him.

  “You don’t have to apologize.”

  “Sorry,” I said again.

  I shoved my hands in my pockets and stood perfectly still. I didn’t see how I could disturb him if I didn’t move or touch anything or say anything. But Zelinsky looked up from his typewriter, exasperated. “Can you please not stand there? You’re blocking the doorway.”

  I didn’t know where to go. I couldn’t stand next to Zelinsky. I couldn’t stand by the door.

  “Should I wait outside?”

  Zelinsky nodded. “Maybe that’s best.”

  I turned for the door as Mary returned, carrying a
brown paper bag from the pharmacy. “Hey,” she said, “where are you going?”

  “Nowhere,” I said, turning around yet again. “I was just waiting for you.”

  “Awesome. Let’s get to work.”

  She passed the bag to Zelinsky and led me through the store. She was moving quickly, like she couldn’t wait to get started. Hall and Oates were on the radio singing “You Make My Dreams Come True.”

  “You’re not going to believe this,” I said, “but the radio was playing the same song yesterday.”

  “It’s not the radio,” she said. “It’s a mixtape. My mom’s favorite songs. She taped them all off the radio.” I nearly made a smart-ass comment, but I was glad I didn’t because Mary continued, “She died two years ago. Stomach cancer.”

  She said this so matter-of-factly, I thought I’d misheard her. “Did you say stomach cancer?”

  “Yeah. June 21, 1985. It was the last day of school.”

  Up until that moment, I assumed Mary and her father went home every evening to a warm dinner and a houseful of siblings, but Mary explained it was just the two of them. She was quick to steer the conversation back to the mixtape. “I know the songs are cheesy, but my dad likes them, so I put up with it.”

  “I don’t think they’re cheesy,” I said, because I wanted to say something nice, but Hall and Oates hooted “ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh,” and Mary laughed.

  “This song has more cheese than a quesadilla,” she said, “but I’m glad you’re cool with it, because you’re going to hear it a billion times. The stereo loops it automatically.”

  We arrived in the showroom, and I saw that Mary had rearranged the furniture so there were two chairs beside the computer. I brought out my own copy of How to Learn Machine Language in 30 Days so we could study side by side. The book was full of mini-programs to type and try, so I started keying one into the 64. But after a few lines, I noticed Mary frowning.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “This is just a suggestion,” she said, “but what if you read the code aloud and I do the typing?”

  It took me a moment to catch her meaning.