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Authors: Gary Braver

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BOOK: GRAY MATTER
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“Not really. He had my tin ear and did mostly stick drawings. He really blossomed after enhancement.”
She led them upstairs to a large landing off which were the master bedroom, a bathroom, and two other rooms. One door had flower decals and a porcelain plaque saying LISA. Across the other door was a yellow and black sign: DO NOT ENTER—TRESPASSERS WILL BE EXECUTED.
“I must warn you, he’s something of a neatness freak. If you pick something up,
please
put it back where you found it.” She opened the door.
The immediate impression was how much stuff there was. The second impression was its preternatural orderliness. One whole wall had floor-toceiling shelves of books—all upright and lined up by size. Another wall was full of space posters—all the same size, all squared with optical precision—one, a shot of the earth, rising over the lunar horizon; another of the
Atlantis
shuttle. Against the far wall was a huge wall unit containing a television and electronic sound equipment. Beside it was a draftsman’s work board with pens, razor knives, and other tools—all lined up neatly. There was a single bed tightly made with three decorative pillows arranged so precisely that the points lined up. The place looked as if a fussy old woman rather than a fourteen-year-old boy occupied it.
But that was just more sour grapes, Rachel chided herself. Dylan’s room was in a state of perpetual disaster—clothes and toys all over the place. Any straightening out was Rachel’s doing, because he could not catch on to a system of order. Once she had rationalized that the chaos was the result of his being a late starter or immaturity or maybe a male thing—that he had an overactive guy-sloppiness gland. Now she suspected it reflected some haywire brain circuitry.
“If for nothing else, this was worth the fee,” Vanessa said.
Rachel wanted to ask about that, but the subject was off-limits. She smiled, but thought that the excessive neatness was creepy.
Beside the bed sat a large desk with a computer with an oversized monitor and printer—probably used for his cyberart. The screen saver was a continuously changing maze with red balls trying to make their way through the shifting network. It looked like graphics designed to drive the observer mad.
Above the computer hung a framed document announcing that Julian
Watts, age eleven, had won first prize in his age group in a regional science fair. The title of his project: “How Different Types of Music Affect the Ability of Mice to Run Mazes.”
On a corner table sat a large flat surface with a maze. Near it was a cage with some mice. “Very impressive,” Rachel said.
“You wouldn’t think so at three in the morning,” Vanessa said. “He played everything from
Aïda
to Zambian tribal chants. Around the clock.”
“And what did he determine?”
“That mice ran better with the longhairs than with rap. I’m not exactly sure how that affects the rest of the universe, but he had a good time.”
On the bulletin board were Museum of Science membership announcements and a list of upcoming museum shows and movies. Also, some snapshots of Julian’s class at Bloomfield Prep. The room contained all the adolescent accouterments of a kid who was going places. Nerd perfect. The kind of room Martin would love for Dylan.
As Rachel passed through the door, her eye caught on a curious little cartoon figure the boy had drawn and tacked over the light switch. Among all the high-tech paraphernalia it was the sole reminder that Julian was still a boy and not a grad student in astrophysics. It seemed so out of place: a happyfaced blue Dumbo.
“I’m not sure what—” But a loud crash from below cut Vanessa off.
They moved out to the landing. More pounding, then around the bottom of the staircase stormed a teenage girl. She looked very upset.
“Lisa!” Vanessa said. “What happened?”
Lisa looked up at her mother, unrestrained by the presence of the other women. “I told you it wasn’t right!” She slammed down her backpack, and stomped her way up the stairs. She wagged a paper at her mother. “I told you to let me do my own work.”
Vanessa looked mortified by Lisa’s outburst. “Maybe we can talk about this later.”
When the girl reached the top, she stopped nose-to-nose with Vanessa. Rachel noticed that the tips of Lisa’s fingers were all red where the nails had been chewed to the quick.
“Thanks to you, she gave me a fucking Incomplete!” she screamed in her mother’s face. “Now I have to redo it, and the best I can get is a C.”
Vanessa’s cheeks were burning dark red, as if she’d just been slapped. “Lisa, we can work this out, okay?”
“‘The words are too big, the syntax is too sophisticated, the prose is too polished,’” Lisa singsonged in a voice mocking her teacher. “It wasn’t me,” she screamed. “And I’m not Julian. You get it?” She slammed the flat of her hand onto her door. “SHIT! Now I’ll never get into AP English.” Lisa burst into tears and pushed her way to her room.
“Lisa … ?” Vanessa pleaded after her.
“Go fuck yourself!” Lisa cried and slammed the door.
The noise was like a gun blast. A moment later, they could hear more swearing and sobbing.
Vanessa looked at Rachel and Sheila and made a tortured smile. “Now, where were we?”
“‘
I
hate the whole damn charade,’ Rachel said,” as they pulled into the parking lot of Bloomfield Prep.
“Well, it’s the only way we’re going to meet him. He heads for camp next week,” Martin said.
Located an hour and a half west of Boston, it was a school for wealthy whiz kids. “Pretending we’re prospective parents is just so unfair to Dylan.”
“Maybe for the time being.”
She looked at him. He did not appear to be joking.
At ten-fifteen sharp, they met Sheila in the parking lot near the white Colonial that served as the admissions office. Because it was the last week of classes, regular tours were no longer given. However, Sheila knew the admissions officer, Harley Elia, so they could visit different classes including Julian’s, posing as parents seriously considering the school as an option for Dylan.
It was a beautiful place, its brick and stone buildings nestled in fourteen acres of green hills, thick with maples, oaks, and pine that lined paths through ample grassy fields reserved for sports and play. According to Sheila, Bloomfield, which went from fourth through twelfth grade, was on a par with Exeter and Andover Academy.
Lining the walls of the foyer in the admissions office were numerous group photographs of smiling students, some in their team outfits, some at play in the fields, some in graduation robes. Over the fireplace hung an oil painting of the founders, Stratton and Mary Bloomfield. They had started the
place in a backyard barn in 1916 “to keep the minds of children alive and open, to instill a love of learning, to provide a life of fullness and rich possibility, to secure freedom of body and spirit.” Like the school, the inscription was inspiring, but it held little promise for Dylan.
While waiting in the reception area for Ms. Elia, Rachel nearly told Martin that she wanted to leave. The place was a sanctum for gifted children, and pretending that Dylan was—or would be—a candidate for admission was self-flagellation. A tour would only heighten her resentment of other kids and sharpen the sting of what she had denied Dylan. But she held back. Martin’s interest was picking up by the minute. He was particularly taken by the catalog’s boast that fifteen percent of the last graduating class went on to MIT. Most of the rest went on to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the other
incandescent
institutions.
After a few minutes, Ms. Elia emerged from her office. She was an attractive and smartly dressed woman in her forties with bright blond hair and a cheerful face. She embraced Sheila then led Rachel and Martin into her office where she took down information about Dylan. For a painful fifteen minutes, Rachel held forth about how sweet and sociable a child Dylan was and his love for music as the woman avidly took notes. Martin just nodded. She said nothing about his language deficiencies.
When that was over, the woman took them on a tour, outlining the school’s history and accomplishments. Rachel said very little, but Martin engaged Ms. Elia with questions about the science curricula and computer labs. After maybe half an hour, they entered a modern redwood structure with a sign saying GRAYSON BIGGS ART STUDIO. Sheila nudged Rachel that they were heading for Julian Watts’s class. According to Sheila, he was one of only two enhanced children in the school. She would not reveal the name of the other.
“It’s one of the more popular places,” Ms. Elia said. “Kids come here after classes and work on their projects.”
Scattered around the large bright room were about a dozen children. Some were painting; others were in the corner at potter’s wheels. Others still were working with wood carving tools. Two teachers were moving about quietly commenting on the kids’ progress.
The walls were covered with student work—big splotchy impressionistic paintings, simulated rock posters, odd multimedia canvasses thick with paint, fabric, glitter and other materials. Most were colorful, and a few showed some talent and inspiration.
One drawing caught Rachel’s eye—a sepia reproduction of the campus chapel, a small stone Gothic structure. Even the intricate carvings and details on the stained-glass windows were captured. If it were not stretched on a canvas, Rachel would have sworn it was an enlarged photograph. The signature at the bottom was printed in tiny block letters: JULIAN WATTS.
While Ms. Elia chatted with Ms. Fuller, the art teacher, Sheila nudged Rachel and nodded at a bespectacled boy in a blue shirt hunched over a stretched canvas at his table. Rachel walked quietly past some children who broad-stroked gobs of paint across their canvases, moving their brushes like young orchestra conductors in training.
By contrast, Julian sat rigidly, wearing headphones and hunched over a canvas. From a distance, he looked as if he were suffering from tremors, but up close his left hand moved with delicate robotic precision. Rachel had to repress a gasp of amazement. The boy was painting with an architect’s pen. In fact, there were several of different sizes neatly lined up. Awestruck, she and Martin watch him dab away in microscopic detail, occasionally switching instruments. He did not seem to notice their presence.
“The assignment was a self-portrait in any medium or style,” the teacher said. “The only directive was to capture something of their personality.”
Pinned to his easel was a black-and-white photo of Julian that appeared to have been done by himself at arm’s length. He was dressed in a black T-shirt and staring at the camera through his rimless glasses. The intensity on his face was startling—as if he were possessed. Although he had traced the oval of his face with a pencil, in the center of the canvas were two intense eyes so realistically rendered that the canvas appeared to be studying Rachel.
The teacher tapped Julian. The boy looked up and turned off his headphones. The teacher introduced them.
“We didn’t mean to disturb you, but that’s incredible,” Rachel said.
The boy muttered a “Thanks.” He had an edgy shyness, and it was clear he wanted to go back to his canvas.
“How long did it take you to do that?” Martin asked.
The boy reached into his mouth and removed plastic teeth guards. “About three hours.”
Rachel felt a small electric shock pass through her. Julian’s teeth were nearly stubs. Her first thought was that he had had some kind of accident. But they were so evenly ground down—top and bottom—and flattened off as if filed.
Rachel tried to hide her shock and continue as if she hadn’t noticed. “I’ve never seen anything like it before, except the French pointillists.”
“Yeah,” Martin said. “In fact, I thought you were touching up a photograph.”
Rachel wanted to engage him more, but the teacher said he had to get back to work. Julian put the guards back in his mouth, slipped on the headphones, and went back to the canvas.
“He’s something else,” the teacher said. “He’s got a really unique talent.” Then she lowered her voice so the other kids couldn’t hear. “He’s also one of our most gifted students.” And she saucered her eyes for emphasis. “Straight As.”
“Does he always paint with a pen?” Martin asked.
“Yes. It started a couple years ago when we did a unit on pointillism, and that’s now the only medium he works in. We tried to get him to move into brushes and pastels, but he prefers points. You know these dedicated artists.”
During a moment’s silence, Rachel realized that it wasn’t music Julian was listening to but spoken audio. Except that the voice didn’t sound human. She looked at the tape recorder—an unusual-looking unit that was set on fast-forward.
“What is that?” she mouthed to the teacher.
“Spanish. I think it’s
Don Quixote.
”
“But …”
The teacher nodded knowingly. “Yeah, he’s trained himself to understand it on double speed. Last year he learned Italian that way.” Then she just shook her head in dismay. “What can I say? He’s something else.”
“My God,” Rachel whispered. The fixity of his expression as he jabbed away while absorbing the high-speed prattle sent a shock through her. He looked like some alien creature in the semblance of a boy receiving coded messages from afar.
As they started away, Rachel looked back. Julian’s mouth was moving. At first she thought he was chewing gum until she realized he was tapping his teeth guards in sequence to his hand movement. Then she realized that he wasn’t keeping pace—he was counting.
They visited two more classes and ended up in a psychology lab. All along, Ms. Elia went on about the school and the programs and how ninety percent of the graduating class goes to college, half to the Ivy Leagues. “Four of our graduates are freshmen at Harvard this year.”
“How nice.”
Rachel was anxious to leave. The tour was only an hour long, but it seemed to last all morning because Martin kept asking questions. Sheila was just along for the ride and said very little.
The psychology lab was a large open room with many windows and rows of workbenches all equipped with computers, scales, and dispensers, electronic devices with lots of wires connecting equipment. Along one wall were cages of large white rats with electrodes connected to their heads. The sophisticated setup looked more like a university research center than a lab for high schoolers.
As Ms. Elia led the three of them into the lab, the kids looked up casually, apparently used to prospective parents’ tours. The teacher—a pleasant man, about thirty, dressed in chinos and a blue work shirt—explained the psychology program and what the students were doing. “It’s a term project on operant psychology techniques—a classic conditioned-response study in learning behavior,” he said.
Rachel could not have cared less, but Martin was fascinated, of course.
“At the beginning of the term, each student was given a rat, and over the weeks, they shaped the animals’ responses by rewarding them with small electrical stimulation to their brains. First they learned to press a lever, then a second lever, then a third, until they learned to tap a particular sequence of what the students decide upon—ABCD, CBAD, CBAD, or whatever.”
“So it’s cumulative?” Martin asked.
“Yes, and increasingly complex, which is why it’s taken an entire semester to get to this point. This is their wrap-up day. Their reports are due next week.”
Rachel was ready to scream. But Martin asked, “What does the electricity do?”
“It gives them a two-volt hit to the pleasure centers of their brains.” The teacher pointed to a plastic device beside the computer about the size of a tissue box. “That’s the stimulation chamber which is connected to the animal and the computer, which regulates the parameters—voltage, pulse width, frequency, et cetera. And that’s a printout of the responses.” He pointed to a scroll-paper ink-needle printer.
At various benches, quiet buzzers and lights were going off in the cages as students hooked up their rats and were recording their responses as they tapped the levers.
“Did you have any problems with the animal rights people?” Martin asked.
“I’ll say, but that’s the good thing about Bloomfield. The headmaster agreed to institute an animal care-and-use committee to be in compliance with state regulations. That took some string-pulling, but we eventually got approval as long as the instructor does the implant surgery and supervises the experiments. But the kids put together all the equipment and run the experiments. It’s been great.”
“You can understand that the kids become very attached to their animals,” Ms. Elia said. Nearly every cage had name stickers—Brad, Snowdrop, Vinnie B, Snagglepuss, Bianca, Mousse, Dr. Dawson, Rumplemints, and so on.
“I bet,” Martin said.
“By the way, we have another student from Hawthorne.” Ms. Elia nodded to a tall pretty blonde who was putting her rat into the test cage. Because of her height and bearing, she projected considerable presence. “Nicole DaFoe.”
Rachel didn’t recognize the name.
At the next bench, an Asian girl was fixing something on her printout machine before she set up her rat. Rachel heard her say she was out of paper, and the teacher said to check the supply closet in another room. The girl fidgeted with the machine then left.
“Amy Tran. She’s one of our best,” the teacher whispered to Rachel. Then he said, “You folks have got to see this.” And he led them into the adjoining room.
As Rachel began to follow, she happened to look back. Something about the tall blond girl held Rachel’s attention—the body language and a heightened awareness. Rachel pulled behind a partition as the others left, and through a slot, she watched. The girl looked around until she was certain the visitors had left, then while the other students busied themselves at their stations, she slipped to the nearby computer and ran her fingers across the keyboard. She then went back to her own station and flicked the start switch on her animal’s cage to run the program. The animal tapped a series of buttons until the cage light went on and the animal reared up in pleasure from the stimulation.
A few moments later, the Asian girl returned with the scroll paper, fixed it into her machine, then got her rat whose name was Sigmund. She removed him from his box, gave him a few affectionate strokes with her finger, then put him into the test chamber. She wrote something down on her clipboard,
said something that amused the blonde on the next bench, then flicked the external switch.
BOOK: GRAY MATTER
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