Authors: Ashley Edward Miller,Zack Stentz
Colin Fischer (27 page)
By the time he stopped, safe on his trampoline, Colin had filled an entire page.
The meticulously folded-up note
Rudy found in his locker the next day was addressed to
Moore, R.T.
It read as follows:
Football field. Today, 4:30 P.M. Come alone. —C.
And so Rudy found himself on the empty football field later that afternoon as asked. He was alone, as asked. He looked around himself, taking it all in. The field seemed so small when watching a game, but so large when standing in the center of it. Especially when you appeared to be the only person in the world.
It felt good to think so, and Rudy smiled. But only with his mouth.
“You.”
The voice behind Rudy was not Colin Fischer’s, nor did it seem the sort of thing that freak would say to begin a conversation. Rudy didn’t have to turn around to know who had addressed him. What he did not know—what he found
fascinating
—was why.
“Wayne,” Rudy said. “Wayne Connelly. Thus the ‘C.’”
“Yeah,” Wayne said. “Did I fool you?”
Rudy shrugged. The two boys walked toward each other. Each unafraid, each for different reasons. “It wasn’t his handwriting,” Rudy said. “It wasn’t his style.”
“He’s a weird kid,” Wayne allowed. “The truth is, I don’t really have him figured out yet. But you? You I have all figured out.”
“Oh, I can’t wait.”
“Colin solved the whole thing because he’s really smart. He’s not so good with people, but he was good enough to put together why Sandy had the gun in her purse and why Eddie had it in his locker. He even knew Eddie wasn’t capable of making contact with
La Familia
and buying a gun on his own—he knew Eddie needed help. There was just one thing that didn’t make any sense to him…but it makes sense to me.”
Rudy considered Wayne for a long moment, noting everything about him. His clothes. Hairstyle. Shoes.
Everything, down to the dirt under his fingernails. Rudy committed every detail to memory with perfect recall. “And what’s that?” Rudy asked.
“Why you helped him. How you had skin in the game. He asked me if I had ever done anything to you, if I had ever crossed you or one of the people you call your friends. I told him no. I told him in eight years, I had barely spoken to you.”
“Then why did I do it?”
“Because you could,” Wayne said. “Because you wanted to see what would happen next. You wanted to push a button and blow up somebody’s world, whether it made any sense or not.”
Rudy feigned horror. “That doesn’t sound very nice at all.”
“Here’s the thing, dude. I know you’re smart. You may be as smart as Colin. For all I know, you may be smarter. I don’t care.” Wayne moved up next to Rudy, chest to chest, staring down at him, blotting out the sun. “I don’t give a damn how smart you are. If you ever do anything like this again—to
anyone
—I’ll beat you stupid.”
Wayne didn’t wait for a reply. He turned on his heel and marched away. His business with Rudy was done, at least for today.
“Connelly,” Rudy called after him. “I know you. I know where you went the first day of school, third
period. I know what you do
after
school. I know everything.”
“Then you know I’m serious,” Wayne said, and he did not look back.
Moments later, Rudy was alone in the world once more. As he preferred.
HUMAN BEHAVIOR
The word “altruism” dates only to the nineteenth century, but the mystery of why people are so willing to put the welfare of others before their own has consumed philosophers, theologians, and scientists for over two thousand years. If nature is a constant struggle between organisms for survival and sustenance, why would one creature ever sacrifice its own well-being in favor of another?
Religious texts tend to celebrate altruism and self-sacrifice, but often without explaining why it’s preferable to love one’s neighbor as oneself. The prospect of reward in the afterlife is sometimes dangled as payment for compassion and self-sacrifice, and that is that. But I find the
idea of a heavenly quid pro quo distasteful and unsatisfactory.
Psychologists trace the origins of altruism to the emotion of empathy—the ability to feel the pain of another being as if experiencing it oneself. I don’t like this explanation either. If the empathy-altruism hypothesis is correct, then a person is helping another to make his or her own suffering cease, making altruism just another form of selfishness.
Biologists, meanwhile, have invoked evolution in attempting to explain altruism, specifically the idea of kin selection. The theory goes that for most of history, humans lived together in small, closely related bands. When one hunter-gatherer helped another, he was actually helping ensure the survival of his own genes by proxy. Evolutionary mathematician JBS Haldane expressed the principle best when he declared, “I would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins.” I find this explanation unsatisfactory, too. I only have one brother, but I would lay down my life for him if necessary.
I expressed this to Danny on his eleventh birthday, just before he blew out the candles and made his wish. He told me not to get his hopes up.
Colin bounced high in the air
—higher, perhaps, than he had ever bounced before, pushing the elasticity of the
trampoline to its limits. The springs pulled the fabric taut, groaning with the strain, but held as Colin landed and soared once more into the clear, blue San Fernando Valley sky.
Wayne stood at the foot of the trampoline with a
DUBIOUS
frown, arms crossed.
“No, really!” Colin exclaimed as his feet floated above Wayne’s head. “It helps you think!” he shouted as he belly-flopped onto the fabric and rebounded. “And now it’s an Olympic sport!”
35
He tucked into a forward flip and performed it expertly.
Colin’s enthusiasm was difficult to dismiss. It was even more difficult to dismiss when Colin slowed to a light hop and beckoned Wayne onto the trampoline, insistent but unassuming. “Try it.”
“What the hell,” Wayne said. He shrugged, addressed the aluminum frame, and unsteadily pulled himself over the pad and onto the mat with no small sense of
CONCERN
.
Colin reached out to help.
Wayne’s outstretched hand froze an inch from Colin’s, suddenly uncertain. He’d never seen Colin touch anyone on purpose, and the consequences of unwanted physical contact were well documented.
Wayne looked in Colin’s eyes, searching for an answer he knew would not be written there.
Colin splayed his fingers, reaching further.
Now, Wayne understood. He accepted Colin’s offer, long enough to stand. The trampoline wobbled, punishing his inexperience, but Colin would not let him fall. He was stronger than Wayne imagined.
Then, his confidence growing, Wayne let go of Colin’s hand. He bounced. A test flight, and a successful one. Wayne bounced higher, and grinned. Colin grinned too. He was not mirroring Wayne, and he was not following a script. He felt
JOY
.
Colin’s parents stood together at the kitchen window. They watched in silence, struck by the effortlessness of their son’s play and the ease of his connection to Wayne. The sight was unprecedented.
Mrs. Fischer smiled. “He’s really gonna be okay, isn’t he?”
Mr. Fischer smiled back and pulled his wife close to him, his eyes locked on his boy with his new friend. Possibly from the look of things, the best friend Colin had ever had. Then Mr. Fischer frowned. He knew he should be happy, but somehow…he saw his own face reflected in the glass and wondered what Colin would make of him now.
“Life is a mystery,” he said.
Outside, Colin was too busy making plans to notice his father’s expression. If he had, he would not have
understood why his father looked
SAD
. It was not a thing for boys to understand until they became fathers themselves, and this strange moment arrived.
“We could train together,” Colin declared breathlessly. “Compete in the pairs category…” Colin laid out his Olympic vision, and Wayne listened, and they bounced into the late summer sky together.
Each in their own way, they knew Rudolph Talbott Moore was far from finished with them. He had declared war, and there would be consequences. Colin and Wayne did not speak of it. For now, the future was a trampoline.