Curioddity (19 page)

“No, a new number, please. I want to call my dad—”

“
My database indicates roughly two and a half billion dads in the telephone directory. Would you like to narrow the search?
”

“I'm curious. Was the person who programmed you on some kind of medication or is this just a case of artificial intelligence gone rogue?”

“
Would you like me to search—
”

“No, I wouldn't. I would not like you to search, nor suggest a search, nor even think about searching with that limited set of robotic cogs you call a brain. I would, however, like the telephone dialing function. And I would also like to make it quite clear, SARA, that I know where the nearest river is, and I'm thinking of taking you swimming later this afternoon.”

SARA remained silent for a few moments until suddenly, a neon-green dialing keypad began to glow and pulsate on the Lemon phone's screen. Finally, thought Wil as he began to dial Barry Morgan's cell phone number, the maniacal smartphone was beginning to wise up. For a moment, he considered the ramifications of accidentally dialing any one of the other two and a half billion dads on planet Earth by accident, and he decided that if he should randomly be connected with someone in, say, Lahore, Pakistan, then at least they could have a conversation about the local stock market and weather. This whimsical notion was soon to be ousted, however, as Wil's father quickly picked up on the other end of the line.

“Barry Morgan,” came a gruff voice presented in a type of crystal clarity reserved only for telemarketers and debt collectors. Wil stood for a moment, unsure of what to say. The idea of actually speaking with his father always filled him with dread, no matter the few hundred miles between them. “Barry Morgan,” repeated the voice. “Who is this?”

“Hi, Dad,” said Wil, nervously. “It's me. This is my new cell phone.”

“Wil? Is that you?”

“How many other people call you Dad?” There was a brief pause. Barry never much cared for humor, sardonic or otherwise. “I'm sorry I missed calling you back,” Wil continued. “I've been really busy at work.”

“Oh. How's everyone at the accounting firm?”

This had been the opening sentence of virtually every single phone conversation between the two men for the last seven years, and while Wil could normally navigate this web of deceit with practiced ease, today he felt an awful lot like a fly who'd just landed on something very sticky and glanced up to find itself facing a predator with eight legs and two fangs. Wil gulped, searching for a line of bull hockey that might persuade his father to cancel his upcoming plans to visit and randomly decide to go somewhere else that was both far away and infinitely less stressful.

“Umm. Things are fine, Dad. Really fine. But we're busy. It's nearing the end of the fiscal year so we're just about to go into overdrive.” Wil hoped he'd used the word “fiscal” correctly in a sentence. No reaction from his dad. Not bad so far.

Well,” said Barry, genially, “I suppose taxes will always come around at the same time every year. They always do for me.”

“That's what I always say to the guys.”

“What?”

“Taxes. They always come around. Unless you don't do them.”

This conversation was already beginning to derail. Wil moved through the main door of the Castle Towers and into the lobby, listening politely to his father's generalities about the importance of timely and well-prepared tax returns. He knew that Barry could be counted on for a good five minutes of lecturing, and this would give him enough time to get up to the nineteenth floor. And with any luck, he might lose reception inside the Rat Barf Express on the way up to his office.

As Wil listened to Barry waffling on about his favorite tax forms and great moments in accounting history, he moved past the two brothers inside the lobby, playing chess. The strange twins with their matching comb-overs seemed lost in their game, as usual, and so Wil gave them no more than a cursory glance as he passed by and entered the elevator. But as the elevator doors began to close and Wil girded his metaphorical loins for nineteen floors' worth of the Vomit Comet—his Lemon phone now held roughly twelve inches from his left ear—one of the two brothers over at the table did something rather odd: he began to stand up. Weird, thought Wil. This was the first time he'd ever seen either twin actually move away from the chessboard. As the first brother began to stand, the second seemed to slump down a little on his chair, as if the removal of the first brother's torso had created a little vortex under the table that had sucked him in. Just as the elevator doors closed, Wil watched with mild intrigue as the standing brother began to slip and fall to one side of the chess table, suggesting the effort of standing had proven too much for the poor man.

Inside the elevator, the smell of rat vomit seemed more pungent than usual. Wil mentally crossed his fingers—even though he'd initiated the dialing process, he secretly hoped the ascending elevator might be too much for his Lemon phone and he'd lose the connection. As his father continued to waffle on about job security and the benefits of the accounting industry, a one-sided conversation that Wil punctuated with the occasional “Uh-huh,” he allowed himself to daydream about the possibility of reprogramming the SARA function and letting her carry on the conversation by herself. The caustic smell of the elevator, however, was beginning to take its usual toll. Wil wrestled with his gag reflex, found himself on the business end of a metaphorical half nelson, and began to cough uncontrollably.

“Are you listening to me, Wil?”

“Huh?”

Wil snapped to attention, realizing he'd almost blacked out somewhere during his ascent. He briefly imagined himself as an early-twentieth-century mountain climber wearing jodhpurs and a woolen scarf, mere yards from the summit of Everest as the clouds pulled in. This was not going to be an easy moment.

“I was asking about your work,” continued Barry Morgan at the other end of the line. “How is everyone at the office? Are you still having trouble with that coworker of yours?”

“Oh, yes,” lied Wil. “It's terrible.” And with that, he descended into a full-on coughing fit.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” lied Wil again. “I'm fine.”

“What was that person's name, anyway?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your coworker. The one you told me is always being dishonest. I've known a few people like that: people who couldn't tell the truth to save their lives.”

Wil racked his brains as he tried to remember the name of the mythical coworker he'd woven a tale about the last time he'd spoken to his father. “Was it Jerry?” he asked, trying to ignore the irony of the lie he was perpetrating about a mythical liar. This was, of course, a name he'd fished out of mid-air in much the same way a black bear might try to target a spawning salmon fifty miles before it got upstream to the weir. He knew that it could not possibly have been “Jerry” the last time he and Barry had had this conversation, but he also knew his dad very rarely paid any attention to such details.

“That sounds like it,” replied Barry, mercifully.

“Yeah, Jerry,” said Wil with more than a tinge of guilt creeping into his voice. “I hate that guy.”

*   *   *

W
IL EXITED
the elevator at the nineteenth floor, gasping for air, and he staggered forward until he could steady himself on the far wall. He was going to have to think of a way to persuade his father not to visit while at the same time making the whole thing seem entirely natural. Ever since Barry had first called, Wil had been working on a series of excuses ranging from the outlandish to the downright ridiculous. Tales of alien abduction and being recruited by the Secret Service had given way to more reasonable explanations such as unexpected construction work and sudden contagious illness.

“Dad,” began Wil, hesitantly, “I have a little bit of bad news.”

“Oh?” replied his father. “Is anything wrong?”

“We've had an infestation at work. Cockroaches.” That didn't sound plausible, he thought. “And fleas,” he added, hastily.

“Cockroaches and fleas?”

“The cockroaches have fleas. They've had to shut the entire building down and cover it with a tent. We're all having to work from home. It's going to take a couple of months to clear the place out.”

Utter silence. Wil hoped beyond hope that his father might bite. But now that he'd said the words out loud, his chosen trail of deceit was feeling more like a goat track through a minefield than the two-lane highway he'd hoped for. There was no going back now.

“Don't you work in the Central Building?” asked Barry, suspiciously.

“Yes … yes, I do.”

“And they've covered it with a tent?”

“Floor by floor. But essentially, yes.”

“Well, I suppose at least you won't have to deal with Jerry.”

“Who?”

*   *   *

W
IL BLANCHED
as he moved toward his office door and fumbled for his keys. He had always been a terrible liar; his lies had a tendency not only of catching up to him but also lapping him a few times just to prove a point. Phase Two of his lie now seemed even more outlandish than Phase One. But he was already in too deep. Might as well go for it, he reasoned.

“So the worse news is that the fleas are carrying some kind of fever. Everyone's been coming down with it. The doctors said it's probably very contagious.”

“Oh my word, Wil! That sounds terrible!”

“It is. Jerry got it the worst. They said he might never recover—”

*   *   *

J
UST AS
Wil reached with his keys to open his door—now warming to his mammoth infestation tale and preparing to describe the symptoms of Yellow Mountain Fever, which he'd been researching on his Lemon phone interface—he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. Looking through the glass door just above the word
ROTAGITSEVNI
, there appeared to be the dark silhouette of a figure seated in his office. In fact, this person seemed to be sitting in Wil's own chair. He looked down at the lock and moved the handle slightly, discovering to his horror that it turned with ease. Someone was definitely inside his office!

“Dad,” Wil hissed into the phone, “can you hold on for a second? Something's come up.”

“What is it?”

“I'm not sure. I think someone's in my office.”

“Aren't you at home?”

“No. It's complicated. Look, just hold on, okay?”

Wil turned the handle oh so slightly, his heart racing and his mind doing cartwheels as he tried to imagine who might be inside his office. With any luck, Mr. Whatley had let himself in and was emptying the trash just below Wil's desk. Perhaps Mr. Dinsdale had come to check on his progress—Wil wouldn't put it past the old man to have found a way inside and casually be enjoying the sound of the Swiss clock's many cogs and gears next door.

But what if Mr. Dinsdale was an imposter? he wondered. What if this was someone from the authorities? Even worse, what if it was a sheriff or a debt collector, like one of those steroid-addled bodybuilders he'd seen on TV?

The figure in Wil's office chair seemed to be sitting with his or her back to the door, facing the window that looked out onto the brick wall of the Swiss clock. Wil opened the door slowly. But as he tried to squeeze quietly inside his office, his leg accidentally bumped into the package containing the orphaned Air-Max 2000 driver, causing it to clatter to the ground with a loud bang that suggested it most likely did not survive the fall. Wil gritted his teeth and blinked. He had given away his position.

“Hello,” he said, nervously. “Is anybody there?”

No response. The chair began to swivel slowly. Wil's teeth were now trying to bite their way out of his mouth.

The chair swiveled a full 180 degrees. Wil's Lemon phone clattered to the ground as he stood—jaw agape—rooted to the spot.

“I came a few days early,” said Barry Morgan, fixing his son with a glare made of pure hardened steel. “I would've been here even earlier but I got delayed talking to Jerry.”

*   *   *

W
IL STOOD
rooted to the spot, doing his best impression of a Texas live oak that had just been peppered with a twelve-gauge shotgun. A quick internal wellness check informed him that his eyes were bulging, and the outsides of his little fingers had begun to tingle. He suddenly needed very much to go to a bathroom: preferably, one in South Africa.

“Melissa,” said his father.

“What?” replied Wil as he tried in vain to control his rapidly blinking left eye, which seemed to be trying to fold itself over his right cheekbone.

“Melissa,” repeated Barry. “Last time we spoke, the coworker you didn't like was called Melissa. She seems to have undergone a dramatic personality change, not to mention gender reassignment surgery. And a total body transplant. I wonder if she's aware of what's happened?

“Dad, look … I can explain—”

“Speaking of personality changes, I'm sure ‘Melissa' isn't alone. The last I knew my son was on a steady path toward partner at a reputable accounting firm. He was living in a rent-controlled apartment in a safe area of town, and he had been saving his money wisely. My new son—”

“Dad—”

“My
new
son lives in a cat-infested flophouse just blocks from a flea-infested flea market. He follows people in secret and tries to take pictures of them in compromising positions. He has apparently chosen a career in the twilight world of insurance fraud, and has been living a lie for at least the last seven years.” Barry frowned, as if the scale of Wil's deceit was just beginning to dawn on him. “What have I done to deserve this?” he asked no one in particular.