Mead knows he should leave. Knows he should go talk to Shirley and then to the dean and he wills his body to do just that. To get up and leave. But it doesn’t obey. And truth be told, Mead is not the least bit sure he trusts his legs to get him downstairs to his own room, let alone across campus to the dean’s office. So he lets Herman lift him off the floor. Lies back on the bed and closes his eyes. Just for a minute. Just until his head clears. Then he will go talk to Shirley. And then he will go to the dean’s office and tell the man everything.
MEAD AWAKES WITH A START. The room is dark so he cannot read the face of his watch but he doesn’t need to see it to know that he has missed his four o’clock appointment with Dean Falconia. Shit. He might still have time, though, to get to the library before it closes.
His foggy mind has cleared but his throbbing headache is worse than ever. And there is this terrible weight pressing on his chest, making it difficult for him to breathe. Mead goes to sit up and discovers that the weight is an arm, glances over his shoulder and sees Herman lying next to him. In the same bed.
His heart starts racing. Mead looks down to make sure his pants are still on. They are. Then he looks over at Herman and, thank god, his pants are on too. Mead remembers lying in bed next to Shirley, holding her breast and masturbating while she slept. He remembers the two pairs of shoes in the men’s room. Shit. Could Herman have done the same thing to Mead?
He gets a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Like a rabbit in an open field, Mead senses danger, every cell in his body telling him to get out, to run for cover. He wraps his hand around Herman’s wrist with the intention of lifting it off his chest when the guy stirs. Mead lets go and lies still, hoping that Herman will drift off again. But he doesn’t, he sits up and says, “Hey there, sleepyhead, you feeling any better?”
“Yes,” Mead says in as calm a voice as he can muster. “You were right. All I needed was a little nap. I feel much better now. Thank you.” Then he attempts to get up out of bed, but Herman grabs his arm and pulls him back down.
“What’s your big hurry, Mead? Relax. This is nice, isn’t it?”
No, he wants to say, it’s creepy. You scare the hell out of me, Weinstein. And why are you suddenly calling me Mead? What happened to Fegley? I was more comfortable with Fegley. But he doesn’t say any of this because he has said too much already. Mead should not have spoken to Mr. Weinstein in front of Herman. He should have gone to the dean and told him everything instead. Mead fears that he has become Herman’s next victim. Or maybe Mead has been the real victim all along. Maybe Dr. Kustrup and Cynthia and Shirley were merely for practice. Collateral damage. Mead needs to play it cool. To be quiet, make no assumptions, and look everywhere always. So he says, “Yes, it’s been real nice but I really have to go now.”
Herman rolls halfway on top of Mead, pinning him down with his leg. His face within inches of Mead’s face. “I gave you the option to leave. Remember? On the way to Bell Labs. I would’ve taken you to the airport. I would’ve let you off the hook but you didn’t accept my offer, Mead. You already had the bait in your mouth and you didn’t want to let go. You didn’t want me to throw you back in the ocean. You made the choice and now you’ll have to live with it.”
“What are you talking about, Weinstein? What bait?”
“Access to the supercomputer.”
“I didn’t ask you to fly me out there, Weinstein. I didn’t even know the Cray X-MP existed. It was your idea. You bought the ticket and then you goddamned nearly had to kidnap me to get me to go.”
“You remind me of my little brother,” Herman says. “I used to think that he did it deliberately. I used to think that he deliberately set out to humiliate me in front of my father by outplaying me on the piano.” He laughs. It’s not a real laugh; it’s the fake kind that sounds like a curse word. “But I have recently come to the conclusion that he is simply oblivious. Talented and oblivious like you. So you see, I don’t hate you, Mead, because it isn’t your fault: You’re simply oblivious.”
Great. So now Herman is comparing Mead to the little brother. The very one he tried to kill in his parents’ garage. This has gone too far, gotten too weird. Mead has to leave. Right now. And so in one swift motion he pushes Herman away and rolls out of bed, landing on the floor with a loud thud, landing on his maimed hand. Pain shoots up his arm and Mead screams out then curls into a fetal position and moans.
Herman gets up off the bed and stands over him like a hunter over wounded prey, as if he is trying to decide whether to put him out of his misery or let him go. “Jesus, Fegley,” he says. “Why did you go and do that? You’d think I was trying to rape you or something.”
His voice has changed. A moment ago it was soft and warm, now it has a hard edge. Mead doesn’t move, partially because he is in so much pain and partially because it just seems a whole lot smarter not to. Perhaps if he plays dead, his tormentor will go away.
“Take my hand,” Herman says and extends it to Mead, who does not respond. “Take my hand, Fegley, so I can help you up off the floor.”
Not wanting to further infuriate the guy, Mead reaches up and takes hold of it. Herman lifts him to his feet then shoves him back on the bed, sitting down on top of him and holding his wrists so tightly that Mead fears the blood to his hands will be cut off, that his skin will bruise. And again he thinks of Cynthia.
“Tell me, Fegley,” Herman says. “Have I not been the best friend you ever had?”
“What?”
Herman rests one of his knees on Mead’s chest. “You’re being terribly ungrateful, Fegley, after all the things I’ve done for you: taking you to the symphony, giving you that CD player, flying you out east to use the supercomputer.”
Mead begins to sweat under his arms and across his back. “Yes,” he says.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
Herman smiles. A mean smile. “I wish you would take a minute to ponder that thought, Fegley, to really think about how generous I have been. And to think about how ungrateful you have been in return.”
“That’s not true, I’ve been grateful.”
“How grateful?”
“Very grateful.”
“Prove it.”
“Prove it? How?”
“By making me coauthor of your paper.”
“What? No way.”
Herman presses down with his knee, making it hard for Mead to breathe. “Come on, Fegley, admit it. Without my help you wouldn’t even have a paper. You’d have nothing at all to dazzle the dean and all those visiting mathematicians. So this is how it’s going to play out: Tomorrow you are going to make an appointment with Dean Falconia. Then you are going to go to his office and tell him that you lied to my father, that you have not been working on the Riemann Hypothesis alone, that you have decided to come clean and reveal the identity of your coauthor, the individual who made it all possible, your silent partner: me.”
“You’re out of your mind, Weinstein, I will do no such thing.”
Herman releases Mead’s wrist and grabs his throat. “Don’t make me look bad in front of my father, Fegley. I need this. And so you are going to do as I say. You are going to do this for me out of the goodness of your heart the same way I gave you access to the Cray X-MP out of the goodness of my heart. Because we’re best friends, Fegley, and that’s what best friends do: They help each other out. Like brothers.”
Mead stares up at Herman in disbelief. He feels cornered. Trapped. Not because the guy’s hand is wrapped around his windpipe but because he brought this on himself. Mead knew from the get-go that Herman was someone to be avoided at all costs and yet he ignored all the warning signs and let the guy befriend him anyway. Because of what Herman could do for Mead. Because of who his father is. And because he thought himself too smart to succumb to the fates that befell both Dr. Kustrup and Cynthia. And he hates himself for it. Hates himself for being such a willing victim. For so easily setting aside his moral c
ompass for material gain. So he could outshine his cousin. So he could impress the dean. So his mother would have something to crow about back in High Grove. But mainly, he hates himself for having been so foolish as to have thought that Herman was his friend.
“So tell me, Fegley, are you ready to prove to me how grateful you are?”
Mead nods.
“I didn’t hear you, Fegley, speak up.”
“Yes. I’ll talk to the dean. Tomorrow. I’ll make you coauthor of my paper.”
15
CHAOS AND ORDER
High Grove
Thirty-Six Hours Before Graduation
BY THE TIME THE LAST DISH IS DRIED and put away, the day is long gone. A few ants continue to circle the dining room table. The stragglers. The ones not quite able to grasp the sudden change in their reality. But the rest of the house has been returned to normal, at least in appearance. Mead flops down on the sofa, exhausted. He is half asleep when Uncle Martin taps him on the shoulder and says, “You’ll rest better in a real bed. Follow me.”
“I’m fine right here, Uncle Martin.”
“In an hour you’ll wake up stiff as a board. I insist. Upstairs. Now.”
Mead has absolutely no desire to move. He could sleep on the floor and be comfortable he is so tired, but he gets off the sofa and follows his uncle up the stairs anyway because he is too tired to argue. And because he understands that this is his uncle’s way of saying thanks for all of Mead’s help, by putting him in a real bed for the night. It isn’t until Uncle Martin leads him back into Percy’s room that Mead realizes that the man has something else in mind altogether. He grabs Percy’s blue down quilt and yanks it off the bed, then tosses Percy’s pillow at Mead and strips off the bedsheets. “Give me the pillowcase,” he says to Mead and stuffs everything into the hamper in the bathroom. Digs a clean set of sheets out of the linen closet and remakes the bed. Mead helps him tuck in the corners and fits the pillow with a new case as Uncle Martin smoothes out a fresh bedspread. A green one. The color of resurrection. “There,” he says. “That’s better. Now you’ll get a good night’s sleep.” Then he marches off down the hall to his own room.
Mead glances at the dresser. The team photo is gone. His uncle did it; he put the picture away. He’s ready to accept Percy’s death and move on. Mead lies down on his cousin’s bed and tries to fall to sleep. But despite his utter exhaustion he can’t. His mind is wide awake. Racing. All he can think about are all the lost opportunities he had with his cousin. How he never thanked Percy for looking after him at school. How he never told his cousin how much he enjoyed their afternoons together in the cornfields. How he never thanked Percy for helping him build the maze. Mead did give him half the prize money but that isn’t the same. He doesn’t even know what happened to the maze after the science fair. Is it still sitting around somewhere or did his mother set it out on the curb along with Mr. Cheese’s wire cage?
Mead sits bolt upright. He has to know what happened to it and he has to know right now. He hops out of bed, tiptoes down the hall, and peeks in through his uncle’s open bedroom door. The man is sound asleep. He’ll never even know Mead is gone. Then he trots down the stairs and out the front door, closing it quietly behind him. The night air is chilly so he stuffs his hands deep inside his jean pockets and it doesn’t hurt, his sunburn having finally subsided. He walks fast, fighting back tears that keep trying to push to the surface. He pictures Percy knocking on the door of his dorm room, waiting, looking at his watch, knocking again and then finally leaving. Getting back in his car. Maybe he sat there awhile waiting for Mead to come back from the library. Maybe he sat there and started to question his decision to drop in on his cousin unexpectedly. After all, it isn’t as if they were all that close as kids. Maybe he thought his cousin wouldn’t be that happy to see him since Mead never in three years asked Percy to come up and visit. Maybe he decided it was a stupid idea, started up the engine, and got back onto the highway.
Mead rounds the corner onto his street and sees a strange car parked in front of his parents’ house, the lights on in the living room. Shit. His mother must be entertaining. So this is the reason she dropped off Uncle Martin at the house and sped away without so much as a hello to her son. Nice, real nice. Mead sneaks up to the living room window and peeks inside to see who the mystery guest is but all he can see through the crack in the drapes is his mother pouring a cup of coffee and talking animatedly. She must have dragged another innocent bystander over to the house to try and talk some sense into her son. To waylay Mead as he comes in through the front door all tired and exhausted after a long day of caring for his aunt and uncle. To catch him at his most vulnerable. A last-ditch effort to get her son back to college in time to graduate. Who is it this time? The county librarian? One of Mead’s mentors from science camp? Or maybe it’s the high school counselor who first told him about Chicago University.
Mead steps away from the window pissed off at his mother for once again putting her cold heart so blatantly on display. How she could be so insensitive as to take Aunt Jewel to the mental hospital one moment and the very next moment resume her campaign against her son is beyond Mead’s comprehension. Did it ever cross her mind that he might be upset about his aunt? That he might prefer his mother put her arm around his shoulder and ask him if he was doing all right rather than cross her arms over her chest and demand that he go back to school right now? No. Because when she looks at Mead she does not see a young man with thoughts and feelings of his own; she sees only an extension of herself.
Well, she can entertain whomever the hell she wants. Mead could really care less. Actually, it’s better this way because if she’s in the living room she’ll be less likely to hear him. Mead circles around the house to the garage. The door is open, his father still at the store. He’s probably down in the basement of Fegley Brothers right now with Mrs. Schinkle. Mead should head over there and offer his father a hand. But the man would probably just yell at him for having left Uncle Martin alone. And Mead really doesn’t feel like being yelled at any more tonight.
He starts his search in the garage. One by one he opens up the cardboard boxes stacked between the lawn mower and the lawn chairs. In one he finds a bunch of old clothes that never quite made it to the Salvation Army, in another a set of dishes his mother received as a Christmas present one year and never used, in another an assortment of carpentry tools inherited from Henry Charles that his father doesn’t have the heart to throw out. But no maze. So he decides to look for it in the basement. But the only way to get there is through the kitchen.
A tray of canapés is cooling on a wire rack next to the stove. His mother has gone all out for her latest guest, laying the charm on thick. She’s probably feeling pretty desperate, the clock ticking down fast now, the deadline frighteningly near. But whom could she have convinced to come over to the house at eleven at night? Who would be crazy enough to comply with such an invitation? Then the answer comes to Mead. Shit, could it be Herman? Could she have called him up at the dorm and begged him to come to High Grove to drag her son back to school?
Mead boils with anger. But of course, she thinks the two of them are friends. She thinks the best thing her son ever did was befriend Herman Weinstein. And that is exactly the kind of thinking that got Mead into this mess in the first place. No wonder he is such a poor judge of character. No wonder he let himself be taken in by Herman. None of this is Mead’s fault; it’s all on his mother. This whole fucked-up mess happened because of his stupid mother!
“Here, let me freshen up that cup of coffee for you,” Mead hears her say to her guest, then her heels start click-clacking toward the kitchen.
Mead hurries down the hall and ducks into his bedroom, standing stone still in the dark as she patters around in the kitchen waiting on Herman, sucking up to the rich boy from Princeton who is probably in the living room right now having a good laugh at her expense. Only when his mother has returned to the living room does Mead tiptoe back into the kitchen, pull
open the basement door, and slip down the stairs.
A rack of clothes in dry-cleaner bags stands next to the furnace. The rollaway bed on which Henry Charles wasted away sits next to the water heater. Two card tables and eight folding chairs are stacked up against the far wall. And sitting on the never-used workbench next to them is the maze. It’s still here; his mother never threw it out. Mead runs his finger over one of the bridges and it comes away covered in dust. And he starts to cry. For all the things he never said. For all the things he should have done differently. For not being at the dorm when he was supposed to be. For not making it to Percy’s funeral. For putting his trust in the wrong person. For disappointing the dean. He screwed up. He screwed up so royally that he doesn’t even know where to begin to make it all right again. Everyone thinks he’s a genius but Mead knows the truth: He is the stupidest person ever to have walked on this planet. Ever!
He swipes his sleeve across his face to dry his cheeks and catches sight of something blue sticking out from under the maze. Curious, he grasps the edge of it and pulls and out comes a folder with the words “The Life of a River” written across the front of it in the neat penmanship of a ten-year-old boy. Inside is the science report he handed in to Mr. Belknap, the letter C scrawled on the upper right-hand corner in red pencil and circled. But what is it doing here? Mead distinctly remembers burying it in the bottom of the garbage can on the morning of trash collection day eight years ago. He remembers because he was so grossed out from having come in contact with rotting leftovers that he ran to school and washed his hands all the way up to his elbows in the boys’ lavatory. Mead now flips through the pages of the report until he finds evidence to back up his memory: a brown-rimmed stain that long ago soaked its way through the last four pages.
But that isn’t all he finds. Tucked behind the report Mead handed in is his original science report, the pages taped back together as if by an archaeologist trying to make heads or tails out of some unearthed ancient text. But on the same day he buried his C-grade report in the trash, Mead put the pieces of his original report in a shoebox and then stowed the box on his closet shelf because he didn’t have the heart to throw them out. Who found the box? Who reassembled these pages?
Life After Genius Page 35
