Stevie said nothing. DeAnne had never seen him so unforgiving. In fact, she had never seen him act unforgiving at all. Maybe what happened at school today really was awful, so awful that Stevie couldn't forgive his father for not being there to protect him.
Well, she'd find out soon enough now. "Come on, Stevie," she said. "Let's go to your room and you can tell me what happened."
"Not in front of Robbie," he said.
"OK, we'll go to my room," she said. "Step, if you can't wait for supper, fix yourself something, but if you wait I'll poach some eggs or something."
Step nodded, leaning against the bookshelves. As she followed Stevie out of the room, she thought she had never seen Step look so bent, so broken, in all the years she'd known him. It made her want to go to him and hold him and comfort him ... but she knew that Step would understand, would agree that it was more important for her to be with Stevie. The child's needs always took precedence over the adult's. That was the way it had to be, when you had children. That was the contract you made with the kids when you chose to call their spirits from heaven into the world, that as long as they were young and needed you, you did whatever you could to meet their needs before you did anything else for anybody else.
They sat next to each other on her side of the queen-sized bed that Step's parents had given them as a wedding present. "What happened today, Stevie," said DeAnne.
Almost immediately, his face twisted up and the pent-up tears flowed again as they had flowed in the car.
"I couldn't understand them, Mom!"
"What do you mean?"
"I couldn't understand what they said! To me, I mean. I could understand them mostly in class, when they were talking to the teacher, but when they talked to me I didn't understand hardly anything and so I just stood there and finally I said, I can't understand you, and they called me stupid and retarded."
"Honey, you know you're not stupid. You know you're a straight A student."
"But I couldn't understand anything." He sounded fierce now; much of his anger, she realized, must have been from the frustration he had felt, being unable to communicate with the other kids. "I asked them what language they were speaking, and they said 'American,' and then they started making fun of the way I talk, like I talked wrong or something. But I didn't say anything wrong!
"Honey, you've got to understand, this is a school in a fairly rural part of Steuben. A country school. They just have thick southern accents."
"Well they understood everything I said."
"Because you talk normal American English. Like on television. They all watch TV, so they're used to understanding the way you talk."
"Then why don't they talk that way?"
"Maybe in a couple of generations they will. But right now they talk in a southern accent. And besides, you did understand some of what they said, or you wouldn't have known they were calling you retarded and stupid."
He began to cry harder. "I made this one girl write it down for me. That's how I knew. And then they all wrote it down. Retarded and stupid. They wrote it on papers and gave it to me. All day. I didn't read them, though. I mean after the first couple."
"That was very wise of you," said DeAnne. "And very cruel of them."
"But when I was leaving at the end of school I left all those notes on the table and Mrs. Jones made me go back and pick them all up and take them with me." The humiliation of it made him shudder. "So I picked them up and threw them in the trash and then she yelled at me."
"She yelled at you?"
"She said that I had an unfriendly attitude and a chip on my shoulder and I'd better learn some manners or I'd never get along."
She put her arm around him. "Oh, son, I'm so sorry. She should never have said anything like that."
"They're all against me there, Mom," he said. "Even the teacher."
"Stevie, I know it seems that way ='
"It doesn't just seem, it is!"
"Mrs. Jones just didn't understand what those papers were, or what the other kids had been saying."
"She talks just like they do, Mom," he said. "They just hate me because I'm from Utah!"
"Kids are cruel," said DeAnne. "You knew that-the way they treated Barry Wimmer." She remembered back to her own childhood, to her parents' words to her. "Not all the kids were making fun of you, were they?
Weren't most of them just standing around watching?"
"They didn't stick up for me, either," said Stevie.
"No, they just watched. They just watched, and that made you feel like they all agreed with the mean ones.
But they don't, not really, Stevie. They just-they just hadn't decided anything at all. So if they see you tomorrow standing tall and-"
"Don't make me go back, Mom!" cried Stevie. He was trembling. "Don't make me go back to class! Not Mrs. Jones's class! Don't make me!"
"Son! Calm down, please, calm down." She had no idea what to do about this. Every natural instinct told her to say, Yes, Stevie, you're right, that class is the last place in the world I'll ever send you, and you can stay home with me and be safe for the rest of your life. But she knew that, however much she might want to say that, she couldn't. It wouldn't be right. "These things aren't under my control-I can't keep you out of school, and I can't get you into another class unless Dr. Mariner agrees."
"Don't make me go back," he whispered.
"Son, you'll see-tomorrow they'll probably still be mean, but it won't be new anymore and so they'll get bored and do some thing else. And in a few days the nicer kids will start being friends with you. Plus you'll get used to the way they talk and you'll understand them and things will be fine."
"They'll never be fine," he said, and he got up and stalked out of the room. It was sadly funny, his furious walk, the way he tried to be forceful as he opened the door, but ended up fumbling with the door handle because he was still small enough that door handles weren't easy. One thing was certain, though. She could not let this go without talking to Dr. Mariner.
The Steuben phone book was by the kitchen phone. Step was at the table, eating a tuna sandwich. With mustard on it, which always made her cringe a little, but he wouldn't have it any other way.
"What was it?" asked Step.
"The kids made fun of his accent and the fact that he couldn't understand their accent, and then Mrs. Jones actually told him off because he wasn't being polite enough to her or to them!"
"Adults can be so stupid with children sometimes," he said.
"He begged me not to send him back to school tomorrow."
"So keep him home," said Step.
"Are you serious?" She could not believe he was saying that.
"The teacher's unsympathetic and the kids are all little shits," he said. "Keep him home."
She hated it when he used words like that, even though he apparently thought it was cute-it was so juvenile of him to use shock words, as if she were his parent instead of his wife. But she had long since learned that it was better to pretend she hadn't noticed than to make a big deal about it.
"We can't do that," said DeAnne. "There are truancy laws, you know."
"Just for a day. And tomorrow you call Dr. Mariner and ask for him to be reassigned to another second- grade class."
"I was going to call her tonight."
"Tomorrow is business hours. Tonight is home time."
"This is a real problem, Step, and she will understand my calling her tonight. I can't let him miss tomorrow or he'll think that he can get out of school whenever he wants to avoid something unpleasant there."
"My mother let us stay home," he said. "One day. One day a year, she said, any one of her kids could stay home just because they couldn't stand to go. They could only do it once, but they got that one day. Most years I didn't even use it. But things were better because I knew I could. And when I went on those days that I didn't want to go, when I had almost decided not to, then I was there because of my own choice, and not because anybody made me. I think it was a good plan."
"Bu
t this is only his second day at a new school," said DeAnne. "And what if Dr. Mariner won't let him change classes? Do yo u think that on Wednesday it will be any easier for him to go?"
"It might," he said.
"And it might not," she said. "I can't see that it will help him if he clings to his mother's apron strings just because things were hard for him."
Step sat there, looking at his sandwich. "Do what you want," he said.
"Oh, Step, don't be that way. I thought we were having a discussion."
"No, you're right. He needs to go. I guess I was just thinking that if I didn't have to go back to work tomorrow, that would be the best thing in the world. Only if I stayed home tomorrow, then I'd never go back. So you're right." He looked up and grinned. "You got to send your little boys back into the cold cruel world."
"Was it that bad today?"
"Not bad, just weird," he said. "Don't worry about it. There were a couple of minutes that I just felt like quitting, but what can you expect? I haven't worked for anybody but myself in so long now, of course I felt rebellious and frustrated." He took a bite, but she didn't say anything. "And then coming home and having Stevie so mad at me-and I thought, He's right. I should have been home. I should never have taken this job, we.
should pack up whatever we can fit in the car and drive back to Indiana or back to your parents' place and I should sit down in the basement and teach myself to program the stupid Commodore 64 and somewhere between here and bankruptcy maybe I'll come up with a hot game and we'll be rolling in undeserved money again, like we were a year ago."
"That wasn't undeserved money," she said.
"Oh, you know what I mean," he said.
"If you want to quit, then do it," she said. "If we have to move, then we'll move."
"No," he said. "You think I haven't thought it through? We can't afford another moving van, we don't even have enough cash to get through the month, let alone get to another state. All of our credit cards are to the hilt.
We've got no choice unless we want to go be street people. or something. I go back to work tomorrow, and Stevie goes back to school, and if he hates me for not being there, then that's just one more part of being a father" He laughed bitterly. "Sons are supposed to hate their fathers. It just isn't sup posed to start so young."
"He doesn't hate you," said DeAnne. "He was just- frustrated."
"Call Dr. Mariner before it gets any later."
She looked up the number and called. It was well after nine o'clock, and she might have gotten the principal out of bed, but Dr. Mariner was a southern lady, so she denied that she had been inconvenienced at all, and as DeAnne told her of Stevie's problems that day at school, Dr. Mariner clucked in sympathy. "I'll tell you what," she said. "Tomorrow I'll keep Stevie in my office, to take some tests that we need him to take anyway.
Placement tests, to see if he should be in our gifted program-his records from that school in Indiana were quite impressive, you know. And while he's taking those tests, I'll talk with Mrs. Jones. And either we'll change his assignment, or Mrs. Jones will make sure that things go more smoothly in the old class. How will that be?"
"You're wonderful, Dr. Mariner," DeAnne said, trying not to gush in her gratitude. "Thank you."
"All in a day's work, Mrs. Fletcher. Thank you for calling. Good night."
"Good night."
DeAnne hung up the telephone and slumped into a chair.
"Good news, I take it," said Step.
"She's going to keep him out of class, taking placement tests," said DeAnne. "And then either reassign him or work things out so it'll go better in Mrs. Jones's class."
"Well, see? You were right. Calling her tonight was exactly the right thing. That's why I chose you to be the mother of my kids, because you're a thousand times smarter than I'd ever be."
"It's not that I wanted to send him to school tomorrow, Step."
"I know."
"I wanted to keep him home."
"I know, Fish Lady. You have a heart so soft that you'd die of terminal compassion if you ever let it get out of control."
"Now you're making fun of me."
"You're a wonderful wife and a wonderful mother and now you better go tell Stevie the good news so he won't get an ulcer before morning."
"Come with me," said DeAnne.
"He doesn't want to see me."
"Step, don't be as petulant as he was."
"What about my sandwich?"
"Let it dry out. I'll poach you those eggs."
"I ate two candy bars at work, it's not like I need dinner," he said as he followed her down the ha ll to the boys' room. "I'm going to get fat working there. There's a candy machine right around the corner from my office. Twenty steps and I have a Three Musketeers in my mouth."
"Well, don't do it," said DeAnne. "You worked too hard to get down to this weight."
Stevie was still awake, of course. DeAnne explained what Dr. Mariner had suggested. "Isn't that wonderful?"
Stevie nodded.
"She really is a good principal, Stevie. So you remember, you do have at least one friend at school already."
He nodded again. Then, glancing at his father, he reached out and put his hand behind her neck, to draw her close, so he could whisper in her ear. "You didn't tell Dad that I cried, did you?"
She almost told him that Step had wanted to keep him home from school; but they had decided years ago that they would never hint at disagreement between them on decisions dealing with the children, so that they'd never get the idea that they could play one parent off against the other. So instead she just shook her head. "But even if he guessed it," she whispered, "that's nothing to be ashamed of."
"I know," he said softly. "But don't tell." He lay back down and she tucked him in again and turned off the light.
"Leave the hall light on!" said Robbie loudly.
"Are you still awake, Road Bug?" asked Step.
"Don't nobody go to school tomorrow," said Robbie. "Not Stevie and not you either, Dad!"
"Don't I wish," said Step. He left the hall light on.
5: Hacker Snack
Here is how Step's days were spent: Most days he drove to work, leaving the car for DeAnne only when she knew she was going to need it for shopping. He would rather have left it all the time, but he was never sure when he'd be coming home, and it was hard to carpool with such an uncertain schedule.
He always began the workday by drifting into the programmers' pit, a large room with even more computers than Gallowglass's office. Most of the machines were already up and running, usually with lines and lines of assembly language on the screen, though sometimes there was a screen filled with the faded-looking colors of the 64. As he moved from machine to machine, the programmers would point out what they were doing, and sometimes they'd have a problem and Step would pull up a chair beside them and help spot the flaw in the code or find some simple, elegant solution. Step usually felt inadequate at this, because all the programmers knew the workings of the 64 better than he did and quite often he had to ask, What are you getting from this register? Or, What does it mean to store that value in that location? And they'd kind of laugh and say That's the current location of the character set, or, That's the wave- form for the sound, and the tone of their voices always suggested that everybody knew that.
But the truth is that while they knew the 64, Step had a gift for code and he knew it and they knew it. He could look at a routine for a few minutes and then rewrite it to cut the amount of memory it used in half, or make it run twice as fast, or make it smoother and more responsive on the screen. Back when he'd been working alone on programming, he thought of himself as a clumsy amateur, and he was always vaguely ashamed of his code. But now he realized that he was pretty good after all, or at least good enough to be better than the caliber of programmer that Eight Bits Inc. was able to attract.
Still, it wasn't too smart for him to keep thinking of himself as a programmer. Because whenever Dicky poked his head into the pit
, Step had to drop back into manual-writer mode, asking questions of the programmer he was with about how the game worked. As often as not, he was asking about the very things he had just shown the programmer how to do, and as soon as Dicky left, the others in the room would erupt in silent laughter. But Step didn't think it was funny. It made Step feel dirty and cheap, to be playing a continuous trick on Dicky like that. And so many people knew about it he could not believe it was possible that Dicky would never find out. In fact, he suspected that Dicky already knew. Yet he dared not test the hypothesis, because what if he was wrong? So Step kept up the charade.
Usually this took till noon, and he would go to lunch with a group of programmers and that was the good time during the day, because he wasn't lying to anybody then, he wasn't hiding anything, he was just himself, talking about stuff with these guys. It dawned on him during one of those lunches, as they sat there bantering with each other or swapping stories across the table at Swensen's or Pizza Inn or Libby Hill, that this was really the first time in his life that he had been part of a group of guys like this. He had never been an athlete, part of the team or even part of a pickup game at school or in the neighborhood. His friends during his school years had always been girls. He liked the way they talked, he had things to say to them. And they didn't despise him for being smart and getting good grades, they weren't ashamed being smart the mselves, and so they could talk about ideas in a way that he never heard guys talking about anything, as if they mattered, as if they cared. His only male friends during high school and on into college had been the few who were like him, who hung out with the smart girls.
But these programmers were all male, and it was definitely a male kind of conversation, and yet there was none of that hierarchical one-upmanship that had made Step so uncomfortable with "the guys" in school. Or rather, there was, but it was centered around programming rather than athletics or cars, and on that playing field Step was a star-with Gallowglass, he shared the preeminent position in the hierarchy, and since he and Glass got along so well themselves there was no rivalry at all. Step belonged, and it felt good.
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