I took my time. I watched only one reel a night, though I allowed myself to watch it multiple times. After all, there was no reason to hurry. There was no final reel. Once there’d been a Super-8 cassette, undeveloped, pulled from the wreckage of the camera. Maybe it still existed. Maybe the police still had it, or the Spero’s, hidden in some niche I hadn’t found. Or maybe they’d burned it, and no one would ever see it.
It didn’t matter. I knew how the story ended.
Perhaps that was part of the attraction of my little cameras. Channel William, his ongoing saga broadcast live to my PC, was never in re-runs. Some nights I slept on the futon in the office, so I could check on him just by opening my eyes. I’d long since stopped feeling like a voyeur. I felt like I was in the house with them, intangible and invisible. The family ghost.
I climbed down the ladder, shaking my head at how much work he’d put in. The whole structure swayed with my weight.
Is that thing going to hold you? I asked.
It doesn’t have to stay up long, he said. This is the last scene I need to film.
How can this be the last scene? What about ejecting into space, the whole space suit thing? How can you have him ejecting before you even launch?
Don’t be a fucking retard, he said, in the same snotty tone I’d used. This is the last scene I need to film. I already finished the other stuff. Nobody films in sequence. I’ll put it all back together in the editing room.
You mean your basement.
He rolled his eyes.
So what did you make the space suit out of? I asked.
There is no space suit.
And when he ejects, what? Suffocates? Explodes in the vacuum?
Stevie didn’t answer.
Really? Rocket Boy dies?
What do you care? he said finally.
I started laughing. Come on, five years of the NovaWeapon Chronicles and they just shoot him out of the sky and he dies? That’s like killing off Luke Skywalker.
Obi-Wan died, he said, and came back in the sequels.
Only as a ghost. Ghosts don’t count.
Stevie ignored me. He pulled off his T-shirt and squatted to open the gym bag. His back was covered with bruises so blue they were almost black.
Holy shit, I said.
He pulled the black mesh shirt out of the bag. Don’t worry about it, he said. Just hull damage, right? He pulled on the shirt, and he was Rocket Boy again.
There were any number of things I could have said or done. New ones still occur to me.
Listen, Stevie said. I want a long shot—an establishing shot. He handed me the notebook, page open to the storyboards.
Just like that, he said. Stand over there by the fence. Film me getting into the rocket, and closing the hatch. Make sure you get me moving inside the cockpit, so they know it’s not a model. Just keep filming until I tell you to stop, got it? Don’t turn off the camera.
Obi-Wan was only a supporting character, I said, and started walking across the field.
The night I should have been paying the most attention, I was in bed, in the next room. I didn’t even have the scanner on. The screams came through the computer speakers in the office.
I don’t know how long they’d been going on before they woke me. Maybe only seconds. Maybe minutes. I bolted out of bed and stumble-hopped down the hall without my crutches. I swiveled the monitor to face me.
The baby was on the floor, shrieking. Mr. Spero stood over him, dressed only in pajama bottoms, his fists on his hips.
William had never made a sound like this before. It was a screech, as if he’d been cut or burnt.
Mr. Spero abruptly squatted, grabbed the baby under the armpits, and carried him out of the room. William was still screaming. I switched to the hall camera, but Mr. Spero walked straight into the master bedroom and I lost him again.
Fuck. I clicked through the camera views, but I couldn’t see a thing. But I could still hear William. That piercing cry was being picked up by all the microphones.
I rushed back to the bedroom and pulled on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt that pulled down over flange and bag. I grabbed my crutches and lurched outside, bare toes scuffing the pavement as I crossed the two driveways.
I mashed the doorbell, then without waiting for an answer, banged on the wooden door and yelled. "Open the door! Now! Open the door!"
No one answered. I could still hear William screaming. I twisted the doorknob, but it was locked. "Mr. Spero! Where are you? Where’s the baby?"
The door flew open. Mr. Spero’s skin under his robe was fish white. "What the hell do you want?" he said, shocked.
I pushed forward, and got inside the frame of the door. "Show me the baby."
"Get the hell out of my house!"
"Show me William."
He started to close the door, but I lunged forward, got another leg inside. Mr. Spero raised his right fist.
"What are you going to do, Mr. Spero. Hit me?"
I wanted it. Local Man Hits Crippled Neighbor. I wasn’t worried about being hurt—this body’s only a vehicle, after all.
He slammed the door back against the wall. "Get out of my fucking house."
"Not until you show me the baby."
Mrs. Spero came into the room, wearing a green nightgown, holding William on her shoulder. He was quiet now.
She frowned at me. "Tim? It’s two A.M."
"I know, I just—"
I couldn’t say, what was he doing on the floor? Did Mr. Spero drop him? Throw him on the ground?
"I heard him screaming."
"Babies do that," Mr. Spero said.
I ignored him, and looked only at Mrs. Spero. "He’s all right? Are you sure?"
She turned slightly, so I could see William’s face. His eyes were screwed up tight, and he was sobbing, but he didn’t look bruised or hurt.
"Is he all right?"
"He had a stomach cramp," she said. "He’s fine."
My memory is a series of still images, squared off by the viewfinder.
Stevie on the first rung of the ladder, knee raised, hands gripping the rails.
Higher, a dark look over his shoulder—not toward me, but toward some point in the distance, perhaps the enemy troops flying in.
At the top, the lid of the cockpit open like a beetle’s wing, and Stevie gazing into the crowded compartment.
From my desk I watched her place the baby in his crib. He had fallen asleep in her arms, and barely stirred as she laid him on the mattress. Mr. and Mrs. Spero exchanged only a few words, then disappeared into their bedroom.
I sat in front of the PC for an hour, watching and listening. William’s face was dimly lit from his nightlight. The house was absolutely still except for the sound of his breathing.
I went into the living room, too wired to sleep myself. I picked up the can of film I’d set aside for tomorrow night’s viewing. It was the last can from Stevie’s boxes, the last reel before the never-developed Last Reel.
I checked the film, going slow because it was heavily edited, spliced every dozen frames. He’d worked hard on this one. Eventually I threaded it into the projector and flicked on the lamp.
No sound except the clack of sprockets in the brittle film. The titles came up: a hand-stenciled sign. "The NovaWeapon Chronicles." Flick, and the sign changed. "Final Chapter."
I frowned. So far, Stevie had never made a chapter that spanned two reels. The movie couldn’t be complete without the scene I’d filmed.
The screen flashed—sun glare on the lens—and out of the white a tiny silhouette plummeted out of the sky. The camera cut to another angle: the same figure, still far away, falling and tumbling, arms and legs outstretched. Then another cut, and another, each shot from a slightly different angle, and the figure fell closer and closer.
I saw a flash of rocks in the background. It was the quarry. I remembered filming it, shooting up from the bottom of the pit, staring into the sun.
And then there were new images, things that Ste
vie had filmed himself.
I finished the reel, rewound it, watched it again.
A dark shape in the Plexiglas bubble like the pupil of an eye, his hand lifted in a StarForce salute.
I answered the door still wearing the sweats and T-shirt I’d pulled on the night before.
She held a squirming William on one hip. She turned toward the door as it opened, and smiled in a way that seemed rehearsed.
"Tim, I wanted—are you all right?"
"I’m fine." My eyes felt raw. I probably looked like hell.
She paused, and then nodded. William pulled at her shoulders. "I’d like to talk about last night."
"Sure."
She smiled again, nervous. "Let’s not do this on the front step. This boy is heavy."
William bent backwards over her arm, sure that it was impossible for his mother to drop him. He looked fine. Absolutely fine.
Mrs. Spero had never come into my yard before, much less my house. I glanced behind me. The drapes were pulled, and the room was dim. The box full of films and tapes sat in plain sight on the floor. The projector was next to the couch, aimed at the wall.
"It’s kind of a mess."
"I promise not to tell your mom," she said. A thin smile.
I didn’t open the door. "I’m sorry if I upset you," I said.
"I know what you’re doing, Tim."
My face went hot, and I smiled automatically. "Yeah?"
"You’re looking out for me. For the baby. But you don’t have to do that."
"I don’t? That’s what neighbors do for each other."
"John’s different now. He’s good with William."
"Hey, that’s great," I said. "That’s really good."
"You don’t believe me."
"I’d like to believe you. Does it matter? I hope you’re right."
William squawked at me, excited but serious, frowning like Alfred Hitchcock. I held my hands out to him, and he grabbed my fingers, hard. I laughed.
"He stopped drinking, Tim." She waited until I looked at her. "You know he used to drink?"
I shrugged, still holding William’s hands. I’d only figured this out later, after college, after I’d met a few people who were in recovery. When I was a kid, I’d noticed Mr. Spero always had a drink in his hand. But he wasn’t a drunk. That was Otis on the Andy Griffith Show. "I guess that’s a pretty good excuse," I said lightly.
"It’s not an excuse!"
I dropped William’s hands, and he leaned toward me. Mrs. Spero shifted him higher on her hip.
"That’s not what I’m saying," she said, her calm voice back again. "But you have to understand, he was a different person then. He shouldn’t have been so hard on Stevie, but—"
I stared at her. Hard on him? Did she not know? Hadn’t she seen the bruises?
No, of course not. She hadn’t seen a thing. None of us had.
"Tim, people can change. There are second chances. I know you may not want to believe this, but after Steven’s suicide—"
"It wasn’t suicide." I struggled to keep my voice level.
"What?"
"He showed me the storyboards. It wasn’t a suicide. It was a plan, in two stages, like—"
"Tim, stop ... "
"It was a launch. The starfighter is destroyed, but Rocket Boy ejects. The pilot is intact."
Mrs. Spero shook her head, her eyes wet. "Oh, Tim." Her voice was full of pity. For me.
"There’s something you need to see," I said.
The ship, splintered with light. In the middle distance, the hint of bright metal and wooden shards, blurred by speed and spin, slicing toward the lens.
We sat on the couch like a little family, William between us, sitting up by himself and obviously pleased. Mrs. Spero regarded the blank wall, her face composed. She hadn’t commented on the projector, or the box full of videotapes and film cans. She must have recognized them.
I turned on the projector lamp and the light hit the white wall, askew. I adjusted one of the legs and the image straightened. The machine chattered through the blank leader tape.
William ignored the light and sound. He abruptly threw himself forward, making for the floor, and Mrs. Spero automatically put out a hand.
"Could I hold him?" I asked.
She nodded, her attention already on the flickering wall, and I moved my hands under his arms. I was surprised how heavy he was. I sat him on my lap, facing me. He was unimpressed.
The opening titles appeared. The final chapter. If she was surprised, she didn’t show it. I might have been showing her the dense data tables I worked with.
In silence we watched the tiny figure falling out of the sky, falling out of the light. Reentry. The figure drew closer, until finally the rock walls flashed up and Rocket Boy hit the ground.
The camera switched to a point just above the pit floor, tilted slightly down. The sheet—the parachute—settled over the ground and covered a man-shaped lump. Touch down.
Mrs. Spero looked at me.
"Just watch," I said. "He filmed this himself." Before the explosion, before the Death of Rocket Boy.
Nobody films in sequence.
William twisted around, looking for his mother. "Don’t worry," I said. "She’s right there. I got you." I jiggled him on my good knee, wondering at what frequency and duration his stomach became unstable.
The screen darkened. It was night, and the camera looked down from the top of the quarry. At the bottom, the sheet reflected the moonlight. It was too big to be our handkerchief, and the lump it covered too long to be G.I. Joe.
The camera switched to the floor of the pit, tripod level. The "parachute" glowed prettily, but it was obviously just an ordinary cotton sheet, with none of the sheen of silk.
The sheet moved, and a naked arm reached out, fingers twitching. I had to smile, imagining the melodramatic background music Stevie would have wanted. The arm was streaked with fake-looking blood. Too pale, too shiny. He should have used Karo.
William pulled at my T-shirt, trying to get his feet under him. On screen, Rocket Boy tossed back the sheet.
"Oh God," Mrs. Spero said.
Stevie was curled into a fetal position, naked. The blood described rivulets across his arms and neck. His back was covered with dark blotches—bruises. On film, they were too flat, too black, like holes through his pale skin, as unconvincing as the blood.
Stevie slowly got to his feet, facing the camera. Naked, pale skin shining. He looked up to the stars.
"The Return of Rocket Boy," I said to her.
Rocket Boy raised his arms in triumph, held them there. The screen went black.
Mrs. Spero sobbed almost silently, her shoulders jerking with ragged breaths.
The last of the film ejected. The reel continued to spin, the tail of film slapping the body of the projector. Mrs. Spero stared at the square of empty light.
William yanked at the collar of my shirt. I lifted him in the air, and his face cracked open into a wild grin. His eyes were bright.
I recognized that look.
I tilted him left, right, flying him in my arms, and he cackled. Hey there, little man. Can you see me in there? I’m waving at you.
Story Notes
This section of the book is for my friend Gary Delafield, who buys short story collections based almost solely on whether they include author introductions, front notes, end notes, or anecdotes about the writing life. Sometimes he even reads the stories.
I have to admit that I love story notes, too. Maybe it’s because when I was first trying to learn how to write, I thought these tidbits and asides would contain clues, the secrets to telling a story, or offer me some glimpse of the fabulous life of an author that awaited me. I was almost always disappointed—and if that’s what you’re looking for, you will be, too.
These remarks are tucked away at the back of the book because I hope you read the story before reading its corresponding note. I’ve not policed myself for spoilers, and I may very well ruin the story for you
. But then again, if you’re like Gary, you may not be planning on reading the story unless the note gets you interested. In that case, have at it!
"SECOND PERSON, PRESENT TENSE"
This story is about a weird neurological fact that has bothered me for years: experiments since the ’70s have proved that "consciousness" is in some cases a post-decision phenomena. Before you decide to, say, lift a finger, your unconscious brain has not only already decided to move that finger, but sent the command to the muscle, up to a half second before "you" decide to move it. Weird, eh? So, if consciousness is an add-on, what would a brain and body look like without consciousness? This is a thought experiment that philosophy of consciousness guys call the zombie problem—what, exactly, do we need consciousness for?
On my website I go into a lot more detail about the science behind the story, and list some of the books and articles I found helpful. But here I’d like to talk about two other things that went into the story. First is the family background. Like Theresa in the story, I grew up Southern Baptist. I even sang in a Gospel quartet through high school and into college. But at the same time I was reading a lot of science fiction, and raising questions that the kind folks in my church didn’t know how to handle. SF’s main message is, It could be different. The church’s message is, This is the one true way. The cognitive dissonance was extreme, and I often felt like two people, a teenage experience probably not unique to me.
But I was not interested in demonizing the parents. I once may have been an estranged teenager, but now I’m a parent, and I know what it’s like to fear for your children.
Another thing that guided the writing of this story was "The Runaway Bunny" by Margaret Wise Brown. When I was writing "Second Person ... " we were reading Brown’s book to our kids. It chokes me up every time. Because no matter what the child becomes—a fish, a crocus in a hidden garden—the mother changes too and goes after him. Finally, the bunny is exhausted by his mother’s persistence, and says, I might as well stay home and be your little bunny. And the mother says, Have a carrot.
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