The Freak Observer

by Blythe Woolston

After Dad arrives, we wrestle the mattresses and bed frames in, we put the cardboard boxes full of kitchen stuff on the counter, we bring in the dresser drawers. Little Harold dumps a big box of his prized possessions on the floor of his room to mark his territory and make himself at home. Then Dad says he needs to be going. He says he has to get back to build the fire again so the pipes don’t freeze.

  Then he kisses my mom on her eyelids and goes.

  Like I said, some great romance.

  . . .

  “Who wants pizza?” says Mom, “We can get one delivered.”

  “Delivered!” The neighbors are going to hate us. Little Harold is not used to being quiet.

  “That’s a yes?” says Mom. She is enjoying his happiness so much she doesn’t even tell him not to yell. It’s a bigger deal than it seems, that pizza. When you live in the back of beyond, delivery pizza is an alien and desirable custom. Little Harold is ecstatic. He is happy in his new home.

  . . .

  There are some other, minor, details I have to work out.

  For one thing, I have to decide if I want to keep attending the same school. Mrs. Bishop says she can work it out if I want that, but our new address is really in the other high school’s boundaries. The curriculum options are virtually the same, the schools have the same academic rating, and they even serve the same lunches. So the question is really if I wanted to start over socially.

  I feel like I am going to be starting over socially no matter what. I’m going to be starting over socially for the rest of my life.

  And I want to actually finish the Freak Observer thing for Mr. Banacek. All he wants is a brief definition in a couple of sentences. I don’t need any extra credit. It’s unfinished business. That’s all.

  Loa Lindgren

  Physics per. 1

  Extra credit/makeup assignment

  The Freak Observer (Boltzmann Brain)

  The Freak Observer is a conscious entity that pops into existence in its own universe. It is hypothesized to exist because an infinite number of universes have been hypothesized to exist. Given so much infinity, it is probable that something like a naked brain floating in space just spontaneously happens.

  Ludwig Boltzmann was a physicist who died in 1906. He is most famous for his formula about entropy. He lived at a time when it was assumed that there was only one universe and it had existed forever. He thought that if we observed the universe long enough, we would see the equivalent of an egg unscrambling.

  New observations have led to the conclusion that the universe had a beginning, the big bang. Because the universe is still expanding, time (for us) flows in only one direction. As long as the universe keeps expanding, we will not see an egg unscramble. But since our universe had a beginning, it suggests that there might be other events, other universes, or parts of universes that also begin and end. The Freak Observer is that sort of event.

  (PS: Thank you, Mr. Banacek. I learned a lot from you.)

  . . .

  I didn’t tell Mr. Banacek that I’d been using the problem of the Freak Observer like a bunch of jingling keys to distract my brain. I didn’t tell him the Freak Observer is my space suit when I’m floating in the cold and the dark. I didn’t tell him that I cry for the other Freak Observers. I didn’t include that stuff, because that’s emotion—and emotion doesn’t belong in physics.

  New school, new halls, new bodies in the halls, same classes, different teachers. My locker handle doesn’t need to be jiggled to get it open.

  There is no waiting for the school bus, no ride home. Instead, I just walk on sidewalks, past houses and record stores and coffee shops. The snow gets pounded into dirty slush by the traffic in the streets.

  I still can’t figure out what the deal is as far as French spelling is concerned, but my new French teacher told us that there was a nefarious plot in the Middle Ages to make written French difficult so the riffraff couldn’t learn to read and write. It may be a lie, but it is a convincing lie.

  . . .

  It is The Bony Guy, and he is not even in disguise. He is standing on his crooked leg bones in a wooden coffin. A white bedsheet is flapping around him. It is whiter than his bones and whiter than the clouds in the dark sky behind him. He is looking straight out at me. Black eye sockets, a ruined hole that used to be a nose, bright little white beads for teeth. Then I see he is holding a bow with an arrow pointed right at me. So much for subtlety. I flipped the postcard over just so I wouldn’t have to look at it.

  Duuuude! Love, Corey

  And the note: De Dood als boogschutter, Detail uit: Laatste oordeel, Hermann tom Ring, ca. 1550–1555.

  I have a manila envelope in my closet. I keep the rest of Corey’s postcards in there and all the other loose pieces of paper I don’t want to leave behind. I add De Dood to the contents, and then I leave the apartment.

  I was happy in my new home. I hoped, maybe, that The Bony Guy couldn’t find me in my new hiding place. It doesn’t matter, really, what I hoped or what anyone hopes.

  . . .

  I like having two sharp new number 2 pencils. I like their pointy-pointy, ugly, school-bus-yellow nature. I do not like their erasers, which don’t work properly. This doesn’t matter, because I do not intend to make any mistakes.

  I also like the cavernous lecture hall. I like sitting third row from the front. I like sitting in an aisle desk, although the desk seat is not accommodating to my ass. There is no reason to move to another desk—they all have identical plastic, butt-proof chairs.

  I love my test booklet with its sealed pages.

  I love filling in the little bubbles. My marks are dark and complete ovals.

  This is my place. This is my comfort. The rules are clear, and it’s all under control.

  I’m supposed to be thinking only about this.

  My brain is made for this.

  I wish I could be taking this fucking test for the rest of my life. I like it that much.

  . . .

  “Hey, Loa!”

  I’m standing on the stairs outside after the test is over. I waited until everyone else was gone before I left the building. I didn’t have any place I needed to be. And now the test is over, I don’t have anything to look forward to, either.

  “Loa!”

  It is the Nice Guy who crashed into my bike last summer. How ya’ doin’, Nice Guy?

  “So what’s worse, road rash or the SAT? I almost blew it. A couple of pages in the test stuck together and I filled out like ten questions before I noticed that I was screwing up. Then my eraser worked like shit and smeared all over the place. The computer will probably gag on that. Maybe we’ll all have to take the test over.”

  He takes a breath. He smiles.

  I smile too. “That would be great. I’d like to take that test over.”

  “Hey, you need a ride home? Or are you riding your bike? If you are riding your bike, you are one serious bike-riding animal. It’s like, uphill, for miles . . .”

  “No. I live in town here, just off campus, now.”

  “Well, I can still give you a ride. If you want.”

  “I’m just going over to the university library,” I decide at that moment.

  “I can walk over there with you. I got a little nervous energy to burn.”

  Watch it, Nice Guy, that smile is going to crack your cheeks.

  “Sure.”

  “Hey, you wanna walk through the art building on the way? There’s always some weird shit in there.”

  “OK. If it’s open.”

  “If it isn’t open, you just have to go through the kiln yard into the pottery studio.”

  “That seems like weird knowledge.”

  “Everything I know is weird knowledge.” That might sound really profound if he weren’t so damn happy. Maybe he has some kind of chemical imbalance. “And coffee,” he continues, “We can get some coffee.”

  So the next thing I know, I’m walking across campus with the human equivalent of a cartoon squirrel. I just want to satisfy
my intellectual curiosity: Will he be visible to the human eye in his caffeinated state? Or will I need a quark detector?

  . . .

  While we are walking down the hall in the art building and I’m considering the possibility that most student artists are deeply deluded, the crazy one stops and kisses the doorknob on an office door.

  “Mom-m-my,” he sighs and points to the nameplate beside the door. “Dr. King is my mom. She lets me not take Ritalin. She pays for lab and clay fees so I can make my raku ducks. And she makes the best ramen noodles in the world,” He glances up and down the empty hall and whispers, “The secret ingredient is love.”

  OK, so this is not my comfort zone. I change the subject, “Ritalin?”

  “It’s not that I’m not pay-attentchy. I’m just not-pay-attentchy about the things that I’m not interested in. I’m just not neurotypical,” says Jack

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “It means my brain is different.” He let’s that soak in for a femtosecond, “You’re not so neurotypical yourself.”

  Score a point for squirrel-boy. He nailed that one. Judging by the cheek-cracking grin, I’m supposed to take it as a compliment. I think I will.

  . . .

  Eventually we actually did make it to the Student Union to buy coffee.

  “Do you have a dad?” It is an innocent question, but I regret asking it. I could be picking the scab off a big tragedy. Maybe I just rattled a skeleton awake. Even if there isn’t a sorrow hiding inside the happy squirrel-boy, a question like that could trigger another public display of affection for hardware. Not for the first time, I wish I could rewind time.

  “Well, if my mom were a parthenogenic whiptail lizard, I’d be a girl. . . . You know, those self-impregnating lizards that bite themselves in the side and then reproduce clonally? Well, anyway, my mom is not one, and I have a dad. He does stream reclamation after the loggers and the miners and the other evildoers mess things up. What does your dad do?”

  “He’s a logger.”

  “Perfect, as long as your dad keeps destroying the world, my dad will keep fixing it back up,” says Jack, and then he starts singing. . . .

  Oh, give me a home

  Where the logging trucks roam

  And the ducks and amphibians play

  Where seldom is heard

  A discouraging turd

  And the water’s not toxic-ic-ic and grey.

  Maybe it would be better if he stuck to kissing doorknobs. It’s quieter.

  “Can I give you a call sometime, Loa?”

  “I don’t have a phone,” I say. “I mean, we have a phone, but it’s not mine. I’m not usually around a phone, that’s what I mean. I don’t have a phone. Phones bug me.” Why do I feel like I need to apologize for not having a phone? People lived for centuries without phones. And maybe my life is easier without one.

  “That’s OK. You can call me. Here’s my card. I made it in graphics class. I’ve been wanting to give it to somebody.” He pulls a little white card out of his wallet.

  It looks like a business card all right. It is the right shape and the right size. It has a name on it.

  JACK KING-FISHER

  How could I forget a name like Jack? How could I forget a name like King-Fisher? It must be true: lack of sleep impairs memory.

  There is a bright blue squiggle in the corner of the card that looks a lot like a kingfisher, actually. It’s a bird scribble. And then it says some other things too:

  WEB DESIGN

  RAKU DUCKS

  UNDISCOVERED TALENTS

  “Thank you. That’s a nice card. Good logo.”

  “Got an A.”

  “I’m impressed.” And I was. I really was.

  It’s a gray Friday afternoon, and I have nothing to do. Mom and Little Harold have gone to visit Dad. I didn’t feel like going, and nobody made a big deal about it.

  I don’t feel like being alone, either.

  I dump out my manila envelope full of miscellaneous.

  There are the postcards from Corey. A girl who drove a nail through a guy’s skull. Four pink piglet-girls with bloody throats. After-dinner science and a suffocated bird. Piles and piles of bones made into architectural gingerbread. I don’t even want to look at the other one.

  I don’t know why I don’t throw the things away.

  I guess it’s because I keep thinking I’m going to figure out why Corey put pictures of the two of us out there for the whole world to see. I just want to understand why he wanted to hurt me. What the fuck did I ever do to him to set him off? Why does he keep picking the scabs off my sores? The postcards are the only evidence I have to work with, but they don’t tell me much.

  I’m not looking for the postcards. I just drop them back in the envelope until I can figure them out.

  There is the brochure for University of California– Santa Cruz.

  I don’t know why I keep that either.

  For just a little bit more than my dad ever made in a good year, I could pay a year’s tuition. Meanwhile, my family could live in a culvert and eat stray cats. Still, it’s amazing, UC–Santa Cruz. Apparently the Pacific Ocean really is turquoise blue, redwood trees really are enormous, and people get degrees in astrophysics. Then I guess, they take those degrees in astrophysics and live in a culvert and eat stray cats. Nobody I know has a degree in astrophysics. I have no clue. I put the brochure back in the envelope.

  I find what I’m looking for: Jack King-Fisher’s business card. I dial the number.

  “Tell me about raku ducks,” I say.

  “Raku ducks are made of fire and can swim in volcanoes. I know all about raku ducks. What I don’t know is who I’m talking to—you don’t sound like Mom. Mom, do you have a cold?”

  “No, Jack. This is Loa. Not your mom.”

  “Good. I hate it when Mom gets a cold. She drinks garlic tea. The whole house smells awful when she does that.”

  “I don’t have a cold. I wanted to know about the ducks. Are they just imaginary?”

  “No. They’re real. I make them. Want to see them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Meet me by the kiln yard on campus in half an hour. I can show you.”

  So I put on my coat and leave the house. I walk a little too fast, just to keep warm, so I end up getting there early and end up shivering and waiting by the gate to the kiln yard.

  A guy with long red dreads is knocking bricks together. He notices me and waves me over.

  “Want to give me a hand? I got to get these bricks cleaned off so I can build the door up tomorrow.”

  “OK.”

  It isn’t that hard, really, to get the bricks cleaned up, but it isn’t pleasant either. The bricks are really rough, and I can feel tiny cuts starting to sting. They would probably hurt worse, but my hands are so cold that they are a little bit numb.

  “Nice to see you, Arno.” It’s Jack King-Fisher, arrived at last. “Did you already meet Loa, then?”

  “Well, she didn’t introduce herself, but I put her to work,” Arno the red-dread-haired brick cleaner sticks a hand out for shaking. His hands are a lot rougher and warmer than mine.

  “She’s here to learn about raku ducks. Maybe you could show her how you throw,” says Jack, “It’s cool watching him throw,” now Jack is talking to me, “I can’t throw worth shit, but Arno is the man with the skills.”

  Arno seems pretty laid back, especially in contrast to Jack the cartoon squirrel. Arno scratches the reddish fuzz of whiskers on his chin and thinks it over.

  “I could throw something,” says Arno, “I was gonna do some stuff anyway.”

  Arno leads the way through the gray metal door into a huge, very warm room. It feels good, all that warm. Then we pass through into an even bigger room that smells like dust and mud. For good reason. It is a room full of clay: clay in buckets, damp clay sculptures under plastic film, muddy footprints on the floor, and everywhere dust.

  It is oddly comfortable to be in a place that dirt
y. It is honest dirt, working dirt, not accidental. When Arno hands me a gob of gray clay the size of my head, I like the way it feels. The clay is cold and heavy and firm, but when I push my thumb into it, it relents; it gives way and leaves a hole the exact opposite of me—right down to the thumbprint of my anti-self.

  . . .

  Working with clay is hard, physical labor. Like chopping wood but with no chicken ghosts. Being strong is just part of it, though. There is a whole lot to know about mud as it turns out.

  I watch Arno make bowls. He draws a wire through a big lump of clay–half, half, half—now there are eight smaller chunks of clay, and he slaps each into a sphere. Then he sits at the wheel. I see how the wheel works. Kicking the heavy bottom disk stores and returns the energy. This is simple physics. Arno slaps a ball down. Under his hand, it is a dome, a disk, a torus, a honey pot for Pooh, a beehive, a bowl. He pulls the wire along the bottom and then lifts the bowl away, carefully, like it is the nest that holds the last hummingbird eggs in the world. Arno makes seven small bowls, one after the other, each one almost perfectly like the others.

  The eighth ball of clay is for me. When I try to sit at the wheel and do what Arno did, the clay pulls out of my hands and refuses to be a bowl. It isn’t such simple physics. It isn’t just strength. I’m plenty strong. It is being centered. Arno is centered. The clay just opens up into a bowl for Arno because he is the man with the skills.

  After I have accomplished nothing, we carry Arno’s bowls into a room that smells like a root cellar. The walls are lined with open wooden shelves. Arno lifts away a sheet of heavy plastic draped over vague lumps. There are more bowls. It’s a bowl army. Waiting in the dark for the new recruits.

  Then Jack moves aside little scraps of plastic and shows me his ducks. When he places one in my hand, my hand tells me it is a rock from the bottom of the creek. That is just the way it feels, heavy and cold and damp. Then I trail him outside to another shelf on an aluminum rack. He hands me a pale pinky gray duck. It is smaller and lighter. It has been through a kiln fire, and even the memory of water has been driven away. Finally, the finished ducks. They smell like smoke. Places on them shine blue and green like the feathers of real ducks. Other places are black as burnt wood.