With a Little Help (31 page)

"Your son is sick?" Sean said.

"Not sick, no," Adele said. "You wouldn't believe the roaches you get down here! Old Ross fumigates regular, but Florida roaches don't seem to care. I've lived in New York, and I've seen some pretty big roaches in my day, but not like these. Like cats! My boy, Ethan, he'd clean and clean our apartment in New York, quiet as you please, a good boy. Then he'd see a roach and whim-wham, he'd be talking, joking, skipping and running. Old Ross says there's nothing he can do -- he says, 'Adele, this is
Florida
, and the roaches were here long before us, and they'll be here long after, and nothing we do is going to keep them away.' That's all fine and good, but let me tell you, I've never seen a roach in the Home when I was visiting Ethan.
They
know how to keep them out. Maybe it's all the shouting. Lord, but they do shout!"

A small lightbulb blinked in Sean's mind. "Is Ethan very high-functioning?" he asked, carefully.

Adele glanced sidelong at him and said, "The doctor says no. But I think he is. He's always walking around when I'm there, doing push-ups and sit-ups. He's not a young man, Ethan -- sixty this year! When his father was that age, he didn't do any push-ups, no sir! But the doctor, he says that Ethan's at zero function. Doctors! What do they know?"

"How old was Ethan when he had the surgery?" Sean asked.

"Just seven," Adele said, without changing her light tone, but Sean saw knives of guilt in her eyes. "He was going to be held back in the first grade, or sent to a special school. They sent a doctor around to explain it. Ethan was smart as a whip, everyone knew that, but he just couldn't
concentrate
. It made him miserable, and he'd pitch these hissyfits all the time. It didn't matter where he was: the classroom, home, out on the street -- in church! He'd scream and shout and kick and bite, you've never seen anything like it. The doctors, they told us that he'd just keep on getting worse unless we did something about it.

"It seemed like a miracle. In my day, they'd just drug you up."

Sean knew the names of the old drugs: Ritalin, Cylert, Dexedrine. Anything that would keep you still and numb. Then came the surgery.

Adele brightened. "You should really try to at least visit Universal for an afternoon, you know. It's lovely."

"They're going to move my grandfather to the zero-function ward, I think. If he doesn't spend more time switched on, they will," Sean said. "I want to get his story before they do it." And if not his stories, the
reasons
-- reasons for who Sean was, who his father was.

"What a nice grandson you are! You know, it seems like no one cares about their grandparents anymore. Old Ross's grandchildren haven't visited once in the five years I've been here."

#

Sean gave Adele a ride the next day. She wore the sunhat and a lightweight cotton dress and sandals, and looked frail and quaint.

Sean thought Adele would get off at a different floor, to visit Ethan, but she walked with him across Grampa's ward.

Grampa was sitting just where he had been the day before. His chin was shaved blue, and he was impeccable. He was methodically slicing and eating a hamburger.

"Grampa," Sean said.

"Hello, Sean," Grampa said. He laid his knife and fork in a precise X on his plate and pushed it aside.

"This is Adele. Her son is in the zero-function ward. She wanted to meet you. Adele, this is my grandfather, Brice Devick."

"Pleased to meet you, Adele," Grampa said, and shook her hand.

"Likewise," she said. "Do you know my Ethan? I'm worried that he doesn't seem to have any friends here."

"I haven't met him," Grampa said.

"Well, would you do an old lady a big favor? Go and visit him. Your grandson tells me you're smart -- Ethan is as smart as a whip. You two should have lots to talk about."

"I will," Grampa said.

"I'm sure you two will get on very well. It was a pleasure to meet you. Excuse me, I'm sure Ethan's wondering where I am."

Sean waited until she was out of earshot, then said, "Her son's a fucking vegetable. You're about eighty percent of the way there. You're spending so much time switched off, you might as well be dead."

"What do you know about it?" Grampa said, fidgeting.

"I know plenty," Sean said. "Plenty! You spent less than fifteen percent of the time switched off until you hit college. Then you switched off for months at a time. You used it for a study aid! I pulled your logfiles, when I was at Dad's -- he's had them ever since you were declared
non compos
. You're a junkie, Grampa. You don't have the willpower to kick your habit, and it makes my Dad nuts. I never knew you, so it just makes me curious. Let's talk about the first time you remember switching off."

Grampa snorted. "That's a
stupid
question. You
don't
remember switching off -- that's the whole point."

Sean rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean. You may not remember switching off, but you'll remember switching on. Switching on
has
to be memorable, doesn't it? Isn't that the whole point?"

"Fine. I switched on for about 20 minutes in a movie that I snuck out of school to see when I was twelve. It was in French, and it had made a lot of noise because it had a sex scene with a live pig. I saw that scene, and two others -- another sex scene and a scene where this woman cuts the pig's throat. I loved it. All my friends had done the same thing, but by the time the good parts had come around, they were too bored to enjoy them. I just caught the highlight reel."

"How long until you next switched off?"

"I don't know. A while."

"It was two days. I have the logfile, remember, Grampa? Don't jerk my chain. You switched off during Friday dinner. Did your parents notice?"

"Of course they noticed! They loved it! For once, I wasn't kicking the table-leg or arguing with my sisters or stuffing sprouts in my pocket. I cleaned my plate, then sat and waited until everyone else was done, then I did the dishes."

"How'd you like it?"

"I loved it! I hated family dinners! I just got the highlight reel again -- dessert! I remember that fucking bowl of pudding like I was eating it right now. My mother couldn't cook for shit, but she sure opened a mean package of Jello Pudding."

Sean found his mood matching Grampa's, aggressive and edgy. "How did you and Grandma end up getting married? I can't imagine that she was hot for a zombie like you."

"Oh, but she
was
, Sean, she
was
!" Grampa waggled his eyebrows lasciviously. "Your Grandma didn't like people much. She knew she had to get married, her folks expected no less, but she mostly wanted to be off on her own, doing her own thing. I'd come home, switch off, clean the place, do any chores she had for me, then go to bed. She loved to have sex with me switched off -- it got so that if I accidentally switched on while we were doing it, I'd pretend I was still off, until she was done. It was the perfect arrangement."

"But she divorced your sorry ass after ten years," Sean said.

"You got a girlfriend, Sean?" Grampa said.

"No," Sean said.

"You
ever
had a girlfriend?"

"Yes," Sean said, feeling slightly smug. Never ask a yes/no question.

"Why'd she leave you?" Grampa asked, his eyes sharp as razors.

"What makes you think
she
left
me
?" Sean asked.

"Did she?" Grampa fired back.

"Yes," Sean said, as calmly as he could manage.

"And why did that happen?"

"We were growing in different directions," Sean said, the words sounding prim even to him.

Grampa barked and slapped his palm on the table. The old men and women in the ward swiveled their heads to stare, momentarily distracted, then went back to arguing.

"You're full of shit, kid. What's that supposed to mean?"

"I was working on my thesis proposal. Lara was working on hers. Neither of us had time for a relationship. It was amicable."

Lara had caught him watching television over her shoulder while she was delivering one of her dreaded Relationship Briefings, and had laid into him a little too hard. He'd come back at her with everything he had, an extended rant that ranged from her lame-ass thesis -- the cultural impact of some obscure TV show from before they'd been born -- to her backbiting, over-educated circle of friends. He'd moved onto her relationship with her mother; her insufferable whining about a suicidal uncle she'd been close to; and her pretentious way of sprinkling her speech with stupid pseudo-intellectual buzzwords. He crossed the line again and again and she kicked him out on his ass.

"Dad says that you never switched on during the divorce."

"Your Dad has nothing to complain about. He got enough pity lavished on him to kill ten men. It was all your grandmother's family could do not to devour him whole."

"But you stayed switched off," Sean said.

"In the court, I was switched off. Ever been in a court, Sean?"

"You stayed switched off."

"In the court-room."

"And before, during the separation?"

"Same thing," Grampa said.

"And after, during visitations?"

"Not then," Grampa said, loudly. "Not during visitations."

"I've got the logfiles, Grampa," Sean said.

"What the hell do a twelve-year-old and a grown man have to talk about? I kept him fed. I took him out to the carny and to kiddee movies. I drove him to hockey."

"You
switched off
, Grampa," Sean said. "The
you that counted
wasn't there."

"Sophistry," Grampa said. "Bullshit. I remember all of it. I was there. Not many other parents were, let me tell you. Usually, it was just me and a few others in the stands, or kids running around loose like animals at the carny. Your father has
nothing
to complain about."

"Why, aren't you two looking excited?" Adele said, hobbling alongside of the table. She was leaning on Ethan, a vigorous old man with sinewy arms and dead eyes. His face was unlined, free from smile lines and frowning creases.

"Hi, Adele," Sean said, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice.

"Ethan, this is Sean and his grandfather, Brice."

Ethan extended his hand and Sean shook it. "Very nice to meet you," Ethan said. His hand was dry and papery, his eyes vacant. Sean shook it, and a frisson of shameful disgust sizzled up his abdomen. He had a sudden vision of Ethan's brain, desiccated in his skull, the gleaming edges of the chip poking free. He surreptitiously wiped his hand on his pants as Ethan turned to Grampa and shook his hand. "Very nice to meet you."

"Do you mind if we sit down?" Adele said. "I'm afraid that I'm a little pooped. All those stairs!"

Sean offered his chair and went off to the lounge with Ethan to get two more. When they got back, Adele had her hand on Grampa's forearm. " -- I worked in a dairy, answering the phones! You tell people you used to work in a dairy, they think you were milking the cows!" Adele laughed and Grampa shot Sean a hostile look.

Sean said, "Grampa was a machinist before he retired. You really liked doing that, huh, Grampa?"

Grampa nodded perfunctorily.

"I mean, the logfiles show that you almost never switched off at work. Must've been pretty engrossing. You should give workshops here. I bet it'd be good therapy." Sean knew he was baiting the old man, but he couldn't stop himself.

"Your father's arriving tomorrow," Grampa said. "He called last night. I didn't tell him you were here, I thought it would be a nice surprise."

Adele clapped her hands. "Well isn't that
nice
! Three generations, all together. Sean, you'll have to introduce Ethan and I to your father. Ethan never had children, isn't that right?"