Colin Fischer Read online

  The second thing a visitor would notice was Sherlock Holmes’s company. Photos of Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, Commander Data, even Detective Grissom from CSI all hung in places of honor on the wall. Once, Colin’s father had taken the picture of Spock to be autographed—and had to replace it after Colin declared the photo “ruined” by Leonard Nimoy’s signature. Mr. Fischer learned from this that Colin’s room was a shrine not to actors he admired, but to cool, clear-headed logic.

  The third thing a visitor would notice was Colin’s floor, littered with piles. Piles of books. Piles of magazines. Piles of toys and half-disassembled household appliances. The piles were everywhere.

  To the untrained eye this was just a mess, not so different from the mess any other boy could have created in any other room in any other house. But its true nature was in its details—not as it appeared, as Colin might point out, but as it was. Neatly organized, like-with-like. There was a principle behind every pile in the room, even if understood only by Colin himself. For example, a magnetron from an old microwave sat atop a book about marsupials and several back issues of The New England Journal of Medicine, an organizational feat that defied even his parents’ efforts to divine a connection.

  Colin stood amid the piles in front of his desk, dripping wet, the towel draped around his shoulders. His gaze was fixed on a piece of paper filled with columns of crude, hand-drawn faces, each labeled with a word describing an emotion. The paper in turn was but one of many in a stack, a rough guide to understanding social intentions of the human animal. At the moment, Colin studied every imaginable species of the smile.

  He looked up at the sound of sneakers on his hardwood floor. From the peculiar squeak and the weight of the step, he knew who had entered. “Hello, Danny,” he said. “How are you today?”

  Colin was only three years old when Danny was born. Like most children, he was fascinated by the prospect of a little brother or sister. Unlike most children, he expressed this by forcing his father to read him every page of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. He asked pointed questions of his mother, her eating habits and general health. He was present for the sonogram when the new baby’s sex was determined. He was unusually involved in every aspect of the pregnancy and cried when he was informed he would not be welcome in the delivery room. Colin seldom let his baby brother out of his sight. He recorded his observations in drawings and, on the eve of Danny’s first birthday, presented a complete dossier entitled “Things We Know about Danny” to his parents. In fact, the first entry in Colin’s first Notebook was about him:

  I have a brother. His name is Danny. He likes to smile. My mother says he is happy because he has a big brother who loves him.

  Investigate.

  Danny didn’t answer Colin’s question. He knew it was just part of Colin’s social script and made no secret of his hatred for the forced, almost robotic nature of Colin’s interactions with him. “So,” Danny began, “somebody took your head on a grand tour of the boys’ bathroom. You know, the full Tidy Bowl treatment. Am I right?”

  “My behaviorist Marie says, ‘Kids are often frightened of anyone different. They make themselves feel secure by picking on kids who are.’” This was repeated word-for-word, precisely as Marie had said it to him.

  “You’re not different,” Danny said with a snort. “You’re a carnival sideshow.”

  From outside came the sound of a diesel engine slowing to a halt and a soft, hydraulic hiss. Mrs. Fischer’s voice rang up from down the stairs. “Danny, your bus! I am NOT driving you to school, compadre, so saddle up!”

  Colin watched carefully as his eleven-year-old brother’s expression visibly changed. “Just stop, Colin,” Danny pleaded quietly. “Can’t you just stop?” With that, he pounded back downstairs. Colin impassively turned his attention back to his guide. He flipped through the pages, trying to match a drawing to Danny’s face.

  Finally, he paused and placed his finger on a frown. “AFRAID.”

  Colin and his father rode in silence.

  Colin wore fresh jeans and a simple burgundy T-shirt. Mr. Fischer was dressed for work, a blue button-down oxford with a twenty-dollar cotton tie and a pair of khakis, all neatly pressed. A Jet Propulsion Lab security badge was clipped to his shirt pocket, identifying him as “Michael Fischer, Senior Analyst.” In the picture, he was smiling and HAPPY. Colin liked to look at the badge; his father’s smile was comforting.

  At the moment, Mr. Fischer was not smiling. His lips were pursed gravely, his fingers tapping out a slightly uneven rhythm on the steering wheel. Colin looked away from him. Instead, he stared out the window, considering the cars waiting at the 118 on-ramp. They had been merging in a neat left-right-left weave, an example of spontaneous self-organization. Then a woman in an SUV with a phone to her ear broke the pattern and threw it all into self-interested chaos. Colin found it very interesting how one small violation of the social order could throw an entire system out of balance.

  “So,” his father finally said, tired of the silence and convinced he couldn’t wait Colin out on this one, “are you gonna tell me what happened? Or do I have to guess?”

  Silence. Then: “You have an important meeting,” Colin said. It was not an answer.

  “It’s the first day of school.” His father pressed. He would not allow his son any opportunity to change the subject, as he was the master of it. “You couldn’t have even made it to homeroom. Well, unless homeroom is in the swimming pool.”

  “Your shirt is pressed,” Colin observed. “You never press your shirt unless you have a meeting, and only if it’s important.”

  This was true. It was also irrelevant. “I know it’s scary. It was scary for me, and I was a jock. I could take care of myself.”

  “You’re drumming your fingers. That means you have to meet with someone you don’t usually have to talk to. And you have to answer their questions.”

  Mr. Fischer stopped drumming and glanced at his hands. When Colin was right, he was right…which was nearly all of the time, actually. “I’m sorry you’re on your own in there now. I am. But that’s how the system works.”

  Colin looked at his father finally. He understood everything. “The director,” he said. “You have a program review. Is it the budget again?”

  “It’s too bad changing the subject isn’t a business. You’d make a killing.” He turned the car into the West Valley High School parking lot. “I’m not gonna make you talk to me,” he said. “I just want you to know you can.”

  “I am talking to you.”

  His father sighed, defeated. He held up a hand and splayed the fingers apart.

  “Coming in for a landing.” This was a warning, letting Colin know he was about to be touched. Colin didn’t like to be touched by anyone, even his parents, although he was tolerant if given proper notice. On some level, he understood their need for contact. He had read about it in a book.

  Colin braced himself as his father reached out and touched his shoulder. A gentle squeeze. “Have a good day at school.”

  Colin nodded silently and got out of the car. Mr. Fischer watched him trudge up the walk, head down and body hunched. He felt a pang of worry, then helplessness,2 a recognition on his part that no matter what, eight hours a day for the next four years, Colin would be alone.

  The hallways were packed with students, teachers, and staff, all pushing past each other in transit as the first bell rang.

  Colin winced a little at the sound—too high, too shrill, and too staccato. The first time Colin heard a school bell had been three years earlier. He had shrieked with terror at the unexpected cacophony and continued to shriek until the bell finally stopped ringing. In time, and with a great deal of effort, he learned to control his response to the noise. It was now anticipated, its effects dispelled through slow, silent counting.

  On the mental count of “three,” the bell stopped. Colin took a deep breath…then held it as he heard a familiar sound from around the corner, one that was almost as worrisome as the sch
ool bell: the voice of Wayne Connelly.

  “Eddie’s head, meet wall.” Something heavy collided with concrete, a soft crack like the sound a melon makes when dropped on the sidewalk, only more violent. Colin crept around the corner, his curiosity getting the better of him. He flipped opened his Notebook and produced a green ballpoint pen to record what he saw:

  Wayne Connelly in fight with Eddie Martin. Shoving. Eddie wears a football jersey over a white T-shirt, blue jeans with high-top shoes. Other boys in football jerseys watch fight—Stan and Cooper. Stan has prominent gap in front teeth. Cooper exhibits pronounced ectomorphism. They are both tall. (All on football team? Cooper’s frame lacks the standard muscle mass associated with the sport. Kicker? Investigate.) They do not help.

  Eddie was up against the wall. He tried to shove Wayne back, but nothing happened. Then he swallowed hard, more than a little afraid. Eddie’s friends, Stan (prominent gap in front teeth) and Cooper (exhibiting pronounced ectomorphism), looked at each other, nodded, and stepped forward to help.

  Wayne turned on them with a snarl. “Back off,” he growled. “I’ve got one foot for each ass.”

  Colin raised an eyebrow and counted. Three boys. Two feet. Curious.

  Wayne Connelly may have deficiency in math. Investigate.

  Stan and Cooper didn’t seem to care if Wayne could count. They understood his meaning well enough, frozen in place as Wayne stared them down. Finally, Wayne gave Eddie another quick shove into the wall and let him go. He stormed away.

  Eddie glanced around the hallway, the focus of stares from everyone in the hallway. He collected himself. “Yeah—keep walking, wimp!” he called as he stripped off a blue-and-gold Notre Dame basketball jacket and hurled it into his locker. Wayne did not look back.

  A girl, Sandy Ryan, emerged from the crowd and wrapped her arms around Eddie in a hug, pushing past Stan and Cooper. Eddie’s friends made way for her. Cooper sighed with thinly veiled EXASPERATION, but Stan’s eyes drifted down the back of her body with a half smile that Colin couldn’t quite place. Eddie apparently had no such difficulty—he narrowed his eyes at Stan with a TERRITORIAL frown, an expression so primal that Colin would have understood it as a toddler even if he had no name for it.

  Sandy Ryan in romantic relationship with Eddie. Likely consequence of breast development and prominence of secondary sexual characteristics. Investigate.

  Sandy was blonde with skinny legs like a chicken—a physical attribute Colin had associated with her since preschool—but she was agreeably attractive in her freshman cheerleader uniform. “Eddie,” she said in a low voice that seemed to have some visible effect on Eddie’s breathing, making it slower and more regular. “It’s not worth it. Wayne Connelly is a loser.”

  Colin poised his pen over his Notebook to record the moment, wondering idly if this made Eddie a “winner” by implication and if so what Eddie had won. Colin was so focused on his task, he was completely unprepared when Stan charged over to body-slam him into a locker. Colin was keenly and suddenly aware of his teeth clacking together, the constriction of his frame, and the slight give of the metal door as his body crashed into it. More than anything, and most distressingly, he could smell Stan’s sweaty clothes—stale, at least a few days removed from an encounter with a washing machine.

  As he collided with the locker, Colin’s precious Notebook and green ballpoint pen tumbled from his fingers. His glasses were knocked from their perch and hung perilously from one ear and the tip of his smallish nose.

  “If you’re so worried about your little boyfriend, maybe you should go after him,” Stan hissed through that gap in his front teeth. “Freak.”

  Colin adjusted his glasses. He felt a fire in his belly. In his chest. In his throat. He tensed his body, fighting back the blaze. If it continued to burn, Colin knew he would not be able to control it. It would get out. As Colin drew in a deep, cooling breath—

  “Hey, Stan,” a girl’s voice said. It was gentle and clear. Pleasant. Colin liked the sound of this voice. It soothed him. The voice belonged to Melissa Greer.

  In Colin’s mind, Melissa was a skinny girl with a tangled mop of mousy hair, her face dotted with angry spots of acne, her smile caged by mirthless metal braces. Colin had noted over the years how other children would shun her, targeting her with their collective cruelty. During recess or after lunch, Colin would find Melissa alone in a corner of the playground, her face red and her eyes wet. He would not speak to her. He did not ask her why she looked SAD. He would simply sit on the ground next to her, knees huddled into his chest, and think of how cool the grass felt beneath him.

  Of Melissa, Colin had once written in his Notebook:

  Melissa Greer: Well-read. Good at math. Very interesting.

  Melissa had changed over the summer. Colin noted her braces were gone. Her acne had disappeared. Her hair seemed tame. There were other changes Colin found very interesting. Stan, Cooper, and Eddie stared at her, noting many of the same things. None of them were quite sure what to make of this transformation.

  “Holy crap.” Stan blinked. He looked her up and down.

  Melissa was not looking for anyone’s approval, and she was long past crying on the playground. She nodded toward Colin, then fearlessly stepped into Stan’s personal space with a smile—a rare event, and worth noting. Colin absently wished for his cheat sheet or a camera because this particular species of smile defied quick categorization.

  “Go sublimate your homoerotic fantasies somewhere else,” she said.

  Stan looked at her blankly. “My—my what?”

  Colin straightened his glasses. “She means you’re confused about your sexual identity,” he offered helpfully, “and you beat people up because you’re secretly gay.”

  Stan scowled at Colin. Before he could say anything, Eddie gripped his shoulder. He seemed tired, as if the fight had aged him. “Stan,” he said, “weight room in five.”

  Stan nodded slowly and backed off a little. He leered at Melissa. “You got hot. Call me.” With that, Eddie, Stan, and Cooper disappeared down the hall with Sandy in tow.

  “I missed you this summer,” Melissa said as Colin leaned over to collect his Notebook and his pen. He dusted it off carefully, then pulled a worn cheat sheet from a pocket. The ink had faded to a spotty dark gray, the paper thinning at the creases from being folded, unfolded, and folded up again over seven years of almost constant use. Colin paged through it, looking back and forth between the pictograms and Melissa, comparing them. Finally, he found a match. In Colin’s mind, he wrote the word PLEASED out over her head. “I can’t believe you’re in the halls without your shadow.”

  “Marie would just be a distraction here,” Colin said. “I don’t need a shadow.”

  A “shadow” was a person whose job was to follow Colin around and help him deal with the unexpected, the dangerous, or the potentially upsetting. Colin’s shadow had been a woman named Marie. Colin liked her very much, although she often had to scold him for staring at her chest. Now that he was in high school, Marie had moved on.

  Melissa nodded, agreeing but uncertain if Colin was correct.

  “Your breasts got bigger,” Colin announced. Melissa’s cheeks ran red, and she laughed a little coughing laugh. She was used to Colin, but never quite prepared for him. Colin looked back at his cheat sheet. “Embarrassed,” he observed aloud, erasing PLEASED and writing EMBARRASSED over her head. “Don’t be. Breast development is a perfectly normal reaction to elevated hormone levels during puberty. Interestingly, it doesn’t proceed at a uniform rate….”

  “Colin.”

  “It can be accelerated by a number of environmental factors, so it’s not just genetics. For example, if your mother—”

  “Colin,” Melissa interrupted. “Please. Stop speaking.”

  Colin did. He waited patiently, remembering, as Marie had often advised, that sometimes people wanted to engage him in a discussion and had interesting observations and interjections to make.

  “I…I kn
ow all that stuff,” she said.

  “Oh.”

  “So,” Melissa said. So was a filler word, the kind people inserted into a paused conversation while they played for time to think of something more relevant or germane to the situation at hand. Colin rarely used filler words.

  “Yes,” Colin replied.

  Melissa grabbed the Notebook from Colin’s hand. She whipped out a pen and started writing on the first blank page she found. Colin watched in horror but did not move to prevent this.

  “If you need anything—anything—just call my cell,” she explained. “Okay?”

  She handed the Notebook back to Colin. He stared in disbelief at the ten-digit number Melissa had scrawled inside of it. “You wrote in my Notebook,” Colin said.

  Melissa smiled. The bell rang again. Colin counted to three. “See you,” Melissa said. She scurried off to class as the halls emptied out, leaving Colin alone and holding his Notebook open to the page with Melissa’s phone number. Fixed on it.

  Colin sighed. “She ruined it.”

  1 Basil Rathbone was hardly the first actor to portray Holmes, nor was he the only one to do so. In fact, the first stage performance of Holmes was by Charles Brookfield in 1893, who portrayed the renowned sleuth in a production of “Under the Clock.” However, Rathbone was most widely associated with the part and, in Colin’s mind, the definitive inhabitant of the role of World’s Greatest Detective.

  2 Despite being a concept of seemingly ancient origin, the word empathy was only coined in 1909, an attempt by an English author to find a scientific Greek word to describe the German term Einfühlung (“to feel into”). Psychological researchers later divided the term into many different subcategories of empathy. The kind manifested by Mr. Fischer as a physical reaction to the distress of another person was called affective empathy and was completely alien to his son. Colin did, however, experience cognitive empathy, which was an understanding of another’s suffering reached through intellect instead of emotion.