by Mike Heppner
“Now, Simon, this is an easy one and you’re a smart boy, so I’m going to give you another chance. Who was the seventh president of the United States?”
“A bucket of spackling compound.”
“Oh, Christ, Simon. Fine, just leave.”
The classroom was hot and cramped, and Simon was eager to go. The audition was at four, but his mother always liked to arrive early so she could fix his hair and check out the competition. His shadow made a small black blotch on the wall as he retrieved his book bag from the back row of desks. The remaining contestants stood before their classmates—the ones who’d returned to their seats. A garish sign hung over their heads, a simply drawn cartoon of an owl scribbling basic equations on a green chalkboard. The owl’s handwriting was much nicer than Simon’s. A long poster ran along the perimeter of the room, and it showed you how to draw the letters both in uppercase and lowercase, arrows pointing the way, but no matter how hard he tried (not very) Simon just couldn’t make the letters come out right, so one day he decided to draw them backwards, against the arrows, but when Mrs. Oates saw what he was doing, she got mad and told him to do it properly, because only Jews wrote from right to left—which, she added, was not a criticism but a simple statement of fact.
An old janitor looked up as the boy pushed open the front door and crossed the lawn. His mother was waiting in the parking lot, car chugging in gear, foot on the brake. The car jounced and bucked in time to the red warning light flashing over the rear bumper. Hands on the wheel, she yelled at him through the window. Her agitation was palpable as a tightness of the lips; he could smell the worry, a certain charge in the air. Head down, he climbed into the car and yanked open the glove box. Gone were the usual amenities—the freon-filled eye patches, the exfoliating stone, the motivational phrases itemized on numbered cards, all courtesy of Derek Skye: Your Only Competition Is Yourself; You Have the Right to Remain Happy; Smiling Is Ninety Percent of Winning. Worried, he peered into the backseat. She’d cleaned it out; a sterile reek rose from the upholstery. He gripped the soft headrest, and the foamy cushion made a new shape between his fingers.
“Mom?”
“Be quiet, Simon.”
He thrust his fists into his pants pockets, conscious of sitting there, his mother sitting there, a bad potential. “What’s going on?”
“I’m trying to drive.”
Trees crowded the road as the car headed west, toward the lake. Simon hated this place; its remote location excluded him from the best of the competition, those private-school kids who eternally popped up on local-access cable stations, mugging obnoxiously for car commercials and ninety-second human-interest pieces at the end of the evening news. He liked the forest, that was all. Skin on bark. The sharp things underneath. Clothes heaped in a secret spot. Looking up at his mother, he asked, “Aren’t we going to the audition?”
“Those people can go to hell.”
They turned down a gravel drive and slowed in front of a small cabin. Flies buzzed; a few struck the windshield. Leaving the car in gear, Lydia turned off the motor and stepped outside. Simon followed partway, then stopped. “Where are we going?”
“Never you mind.”
Reaching the step, she banged on the door and, without waiting, pushed it open. The room’s few furnishings were reduced to abstract shapes by the insufficient light. One of the shapes moved, grew larger, then stood by the door, the light catching it at the knees. Olden filled the entrance, dressed in swimming trunks and an open terry cloth shirt. A pair of sunglasses hung around his neck, along with a bunch of keys that sagged to his stomach.
“What do you need?” he asked. His voice sounded cracked, as if he hadn’t spoken for days. Recognizing the woman, he brightened. “Hey! It’s the concerned parent. By all means.” He stepped aside, waving her in.
Lydia continued past the step and lingered near the door. Olden plowed through a heap of trash, stepping into the glow of a computer screen. His face looked purple, distant. A bulky hard drive lay scattered across a worktable, exposed wires lacing the pieces together, snaking up the side of a file cabinet. He sat down at the computer. “Is that your son?” he asked, pointing with his chin.
Lydia tugged on her jacket. “Of course that’s him. Can’t you see the resemblance? That’s the look.”
“What look?”
“The family look. We all look like that.”
He stopped typing and gazed through the open door to where Simon had already gone back to the car. Olden saw no connection between the two, mother and child. Giving up, he said, “How old is he?”
“Who, Simon? Simon’s ten. No, wait. Eleven. Just turned. Jesus. Too old.”
“Now you’ve done it.”
“Is that a problem? He could be ten. We can make him ten. It’s no big deal.”
“Ten’s no fun. Let’s leave the kid alone.”
Lydia fished in her purse for a cigarette. She moved slowly, stepping around a heap of musty pages on the floor. “I suppose you really could do it, couldn’t you?” She touched the back of the hard drive, where something like spilled soda pop stuck to her fingers. “Just change the numbers. Push a few buttons and that’s that.”
Olden offered her a match but she pulled away, snatching the cigarette out of her mouth. The matchbook turned in his hands, and instead he lit a candle. The light on the ceiling made a round, watery shape, circles within circles, brighter toward the center.
“I like to pick my moments,” he said, shaking out the match. “I’ve already got people watching my house, keeping an eye on my utility rates. You make one mistake and the government never forgets.”
Lydia glanced down at the young man’s bed, the mess of sheets. Her arms formed a cage around her breasts. “Well, we don’t want to have anything to do with that.”
He tapped his lips, watching her. Silly woman, he thought. Still, time was a-wasting, and anything was better than putting his own face on the Web. “It’s all perfectly legal,” he said.
She laughed. “That’s good.”
They looked at each other, then smiled. Lydia pulled up a stool, dusting it carefully before sitting down. “So . . .” She gestured at the screen, the numbers, the zeros and ones. It looked like a code, something from a war movie. For the first time since coming to the Midwest, she felt like an insider, worthy of her own good name; her mother dealt in codes, and her mother was an important person. “It won’t look like this, will it?”
“No, it won’t look like that.” Confident, he put his feet on the desk. “We’ll spruce it up for the Christmas crowd.”
Lydia shuddered with impatience. The best part about going online was that she could do the whole thing herself—put Simon where hundreds of casting agents from Hollywood and New York and Chicago could find him, and she wouldn’t have to worry about going to auditions, because he’d always be out there, and anyone who wanted his résumé or his head shot could get it, whether it was two a.m. in London or ten-thirty in Hong Kong.
“The Internet is getting stiff and stale,” Olden continued. “Even the Gloria Corporation is starting to spruce up its public image. I know these people. They’re cutthroat bastards. They don’t care about us. All they want is our money. Our money and our minds. We can’t let them get away with it!”
She nodded, elbows on the desk. Olden spoke precisely, his hand gestures consisting mainly of knife motions—here, here, and here. Listening, she tried to match the cadence of his voice with equally imposing facial expressions. They were discussing something here. She blinked, registering the main points. I gotcha, I gotcha. Information received and processed. I know exactly what you mean.
“This is great,” she said, pointing at the screen. “I need this. I need all of this stuff you’re showing me. I need it to work automatically.” She looked at Olden and made a baby face. “Waaahh!” she cried.
Olden winced. “Automatically, I can do,” he managed. “With reservations.”
Lydia clapped her hands and stood up. “Well,
I’m convinced.” Dropping the cigarette back into her purse, she brought out her wallet and fiddled with the clasp. “How does this work—do I pay you?”
“Wait, wait.” Laughing, he brought his legs down from the desk. “What does your son do?”
“That’s a silly question,” she said. Olden shrugged, waiting. She sighed and gestured again with the wallet. “If you must know, he’s a model and an actor, and he can make appearances, and he’s experienced in all of the . . . visual arts.”
“Visual arts?”
“Yes. Visual arts. Being seen. This is a huge business we’re talking about here.”
“Being seen is a good thing. We need people who like to be seen.” Grudgingly, he accepted a few hundred bucks, then followed her to the door, stopping where a bright shaft of sunlight fell across the porch. “Just bring me some pictures—head shots, a few three-quarters. Don’t get clever. I’ll let you know when it’s finished.”
Lydia paused on the step, looking at Simon’s vague shape in the backseat. “He’s got a look,” she said, arms folded. “That’s the thing.”
“I can’t see him,” Olden answered, standing back a bit.
“Some people think he looks Spanish.”
“Yeah?”
“I think that’s a good thing.” She smiled, walking away, one heel catching in the mud. “It’s a versatile look.” Hot in the face, she climbed into the car and drove up the hill. From the main road, she could no longer see the cabin; the ridge was too steep, the woods too dense. She laughed; this was her secret, her hidden weapon. Bad things brewing in the ground. A quick gestation, then—BAM! The faces of the other women. Oh, congratulations, Lydia! (pretending like you don’t care). Congratulations! The big concession. Oh, well, but we all knew about Simon! Failed sons, proper and in a row. Lydia, Brian got an A minus in chemistry this semester! (pretending, but you do care). Oh, congratulations, you . . . yes, but look at it, look at it, you cunt, right there!
Who Speaks for Our Children?
http://www.eggcode.com
FACT: The history of the Internet dates back to the nineteen-sixties, when researchers working for the Department of Defense developed the world’s first high-speed router. Today, thousands of these simple devices—many located in unexpected places—form the backbone of our global communications network. The protocol enabling the network to function is a two-part system, known as TCP/IP. The transmission-control protocol is in charge of maintaining the integrity of the transmitted data, while the Internet protocol oversees the routing of the message across the network. As one would imagine, the people who originally designed the TCP/IP module were quite concerned about the security of the prototype. It was for this reason that certain intermediaries, acting under the aegis of the Pentagon, solicited the cooperation of the Department of Education, then formulating its own system of standardized placement examinations. These two projects, while ostensibly dissimilar, shared a common ambition.
It should be noted that the Egg Code stands by the following account, and a comprehensive list of sources may be obtained from the pagemaster by mailing the proper postage to the P.O. Box given at the link below. A surcharge of $1,278.53 will be added as a deterrent to all but the most serious inquiries.
Subsequently, researchers from UCLA submitted a proposal to their bosses at the DoE, the contents of which—though widely bootlegged—have remained under seal for two decades. This proposal called for the distribution of booklets containing multiple-choice questions designed to evaluate a given student’s intelligence. Typically, these questions offered five possible solutions, labeled A thru E. The student indicated his or her selection by darkening the corresponding oval with a number two pencil. Administrators kept their questions simple, so as to maintain the support of those Washington-based advocacy groups who considered the adherence to any academic standard an insidious form of child abuse. Having labored through an afternoon’s worth of examinations, the student returned a grid of filled and unfilled ovals to his or her test facilitator, trusting the proctor to place the completed form inside a secure envelope. Weeks later, the child received a performance evaluation in the mail; these rankings, expressed in numbers of three or four digits, were assigned at random.
At this point, the DoE’s authority was transferred to the Pentagon, and from there, all relevant documents traveled to a secret location near La Junta, Colorado, where factory workers fed the stacks of papers into a collating device that converted the patterns of blackened and unblackened ovals into binary code. Reduced to zeros and ones, the test results left the building disguised as subatomic datagrams, eight bytes in length. The TCP/IP protocol was safe, at least for the time being.
The connection between these two phenomena—computer networks and standardized examinations—should be apparent. According to theory, no one router is more important than the other. As with standardized testing, the aim is to render units of unlike capabilities equally proficient, and therefore unexceptional. This goal is by no means extraordinary. We at the Egg Code propose that the prevailing trend in American cultural behavior is not a democratic one, but socialist.
With regards to the future of standardized examinations, we would like to suggest a recommitment to our nation’s youth by bringing an end to this harmful practice and replacing it with a newer method less susceptible to corruption and turpitude. Perhaps an oral questionnaire would be sufficient, preferably one conducted inside a secure environment routinely swept for listening devices by dogs trained to know their smell.
Night!
Lying in bed, Scarlet pulled on a pair of jeans, her legs scissoring a foot above the floor. She and Olden had gone to sleep some three or four hours ago, and now it was dark outside; when she squinted at her watch, she could only sense the time, the hour and minute hands spread far apart. She reached across the mattress and found her shirt, a cotton heap. Olden lay on his side, his boxers twisted halfway around his waist. She smiled, watching him sleep. She thought about bears, how bears slept. Bears were gentle beasts, and their noses went whoop-whoop. She would like to kiss a bear someday, right on the nose. Bears were different from people because they never took more than they needed, and they were non-violent, and they were not afraid to go naked. Nakedness is beautiful. Why are we ashamed?
Putting on her top, she buttoned it once, fixing the middle snap. Shirttails fanned in a V, framing her belly. She liked her stomach. Her navel was tiny—just a slit, really—and you had to hold it apart to see inside. Moving in the darkness, she opened her gym bag and checked her gun. The barrel was scuffed, a little mark near the hammer. Frowning, she wiped it with her sleeve and stashed it somewhere, under or next to something. Crossing the room, she banged into a chair, said “Shit!,” then mouthed an exaggerated “Owie” as she turned and held her leg. She stepped carefully, testing the knee. Olden rolled onto his back and snored, his right hand draped effeminately across his chest. Walking outside, she eased the door shut and moved away from the cabin. The meadow smelled cool and bitter, the grass leaning in a soft breeze. Trees started just past the driveway. The pines were thin and not so tall. A haphazard trail led to the beach, where the waves looked bright and choppy through the woods. A tower emerged from the lake, drawing a line across the water. Scarlet stood in the center of the lawn and felt the grass under her feet. Closing her eyes, she raised her right leg and spun around, her body tracing a curve. Arms high, she turned again, both feet leaving the ground. The weightless sensation, so familiar in dreams, eluded her now; disappointed, she fell back and caught her balance. Opening her eyes, she saw an old man standing near the cabin. He waited formally, hat in hand. His face was black, his hair silver. She jumped, body tense, all fists and elbows.
The man raised his hands. “It’s okay,” he said. He sounded frightened. “I’m from up the hill.” Smiling, he pointed at a dense patch of forest. His eyes gleamed in the darkness. “I’m a friend of the young man.”
“You mean Olden?” She looked at the cabin—no
windows on this side, just a solid wall. “He’s asleep.”
“Oh.” The man backed away. “I forgot about the time. I apologize.”
“Hey, who cares?” She came toward him, laughing now, hands on hips. “I don’t even know what time it is.”
Relaxing, he wiped his face with a handkerchief. “You must be related.”
She snorted. “Oh, no. Olden and I are lovers.”
“I see.”
“We share love.”
“Well, that’s sure good.”
Reaching the drive, she squinted at the old man. She moved as if hypnotized, drawn to a flower. “Where are you from?” she asked, fascinated.
He pointed again, then replaced his hat. “Just up the way.”
She smiled, shaking her head; her teeth were small and spaced far apart. “But before?”
“Oh.” He sighed. “Well, I’ve lived all over the place. In Boston—”
“I want to go to Morocco.”
The old man waited, confused. “Never been there,” he said finally.
“It’s really a European country.”
“Oh, okay.”
“I’d love to see the markets.”
“Lord, yes.”
“But it’s so expensive.”
“That’s the tru—”
“I don’t want to take advantage of anyone.” A darkness passed over her face, and she stared at the ground. “I don’t want to take advantage of anyone.”
He folded his hands, leaning away from the conversation. “You can get some cheap flights,” he said, trying to sound reasonable.
Scarlet looked up and wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “I’m glad Olden has a friend like you.”
“Oh, well, okay.” He turned his arm a bit, holding a stiff position. “I hope we can be friends. If you could just tell him . . . about the business proposition. You tell him I’ll get to work on that right away.”
She let go and pressed her hands together. “Oh! You’re the guy!”
