The Speculist

“Never mind,” he said. “There’s no sound she’d rather wake up to than your voice. Let’s get you talking, then we’ll worry about volume control. One thing at a time.”

“Okay,” I said, managing a slightly softer tone.

“I’m going to put us some bacon on.” He nodded toward the refrigerator. “Why don’t you wreck us some eggs?”

“Okay,” I said again.

I got out a carton of eggs and a big steel mixing bowl. I had cracked three eggs before I thought of something.

“Do you want…me to…turn on…the grill?”

Jerry shook his head.

“For now, we’ll just use a skillet on the regular stove,” he said. He selected a copper-bottomed frying pan from the rack on the wall. I resumed breaking eggs.

“So this dream you had, was it about the little girl again?”

I nodded, not looking up.

“Grace,” said Jerry.

“Yes. Grace.”

Jerry peeled off a thick slice of bacon and laid it in the pan.

“Was it the same dream?”

I looked up.

“It’s always…the same.”

He nodded.

“She’s in danger,” he said. “The kid who looks like you is about to make her disappear.”

“Yes. Then…he does.”

“Uh huh. And then she’s gone.”

I nodded.

He didn’t say anything for a while. He laid a few more strips of bacon into the pan and turned on one of the gas burners. The he set the skillet on the stove. I poured a little milk into the half dozen eggs I had broken, located a wire whisk,  and began beating them.

“You’ve been having this dream for an awful long time, haven’t you, Sport?”

“Ever…since…I…we left.”

“That’s been 15 years, Corey.”

I nodded.

“On and off,” I said.

___

The dreams had been very bad at first.

Sybil and I were on the road for weeks. We stayed in cheap motels and often as not spent the night in the car. There wasn’t much sleep to be had, but it seemed that every time I did manage to drop off, the dream would come. It wasn’t always exactly the same. Some of the particulars would change, especially the part that took place in the city on the mountain. Sometimes I would linger there, looking for Angela, not finding my way to the top of the tower right away.

Sybil was nervous in those early days, always looking over her shoulder. She was certain that we were being followed. The route she chose for us to travel made no sense; she just made it up as we went along. We drove from Wyoming to Montana, then over to Utah and down to Arizona. We went all over Arizona, spending several days on either side of the Grand Canyon. In Phoenix, Sybil sold the car and bought a different one.  She dyed her hair and said that her name would be Carol from now on, and that I would be Joe.

I didn’t object. For some reason, I kind of liked those names. But they never really stuck. Sybil never called me “Joe,” (unless there were other people around, which was not often) and I never thought of her as being anyone but Sybil. Anyway, Jerry finally put an end to all that. He refused to call either of us by anything other than our actual names.

We stayed in Las Vegas for a couple of weeks. Sybil seemed to think it would be a good place for us, that she could find work and get us a decent place to live. I was never sure what exactly changed her mind about it, although -- while we were there -- she did spend more time than usual cursing this “Donny” individual, who I would only learn much later was Grace’s father. She sold the car again, and we drove on to Los Angeles. From there it was up the California coast, through Oregon, and into Washington.

When we finally landed in Beaver’s Tail, the first of several towns where Sybil and I were to live, things started to improve. She got a job as a waitress and found us a little place outside of town. It was nice, so cool and green. We lived just a short walk from a pond where I would go almost every day, when it wasn’t raining. The dreams slowed down and then stopped. I learned how to cook and clean, and took pretty good care of the place. Sybil taught me to read using books from the public library. Before long, I had her making almost daily stops at the place. Being able to read gave me something else to do at the pond every day, not that I ever got bored. I’ve always been happy just to sit and think. The sheer volume of library books we went through -- not mention the rather eclectic range of subjects they covered -- may have raised a few eyebrows, but Sybil didn’t care.

“I just tell them I’m a really fast reader,” she told me. “What’s the worst that can happen? I get a reputation for being a genius? Fine, then maybe somebody will hire me to do something besides sling hash.”

More importantly, I quickly got the hang of writing, so Sybil and I were able to communicate with each other. Or, I should say, so I was able to communicate with her. At first I wrote her full-blown notes, quite formal and lengthy. But it quickly evolved into a more conversational style, written in a shorthand that eventually only she and I (and later Jerry) could understand.  Anyway, it would still be years and years before I began to get the hang of talking. How often I’ve wished that my ability to dream up changes to the world had lasted one more day. I would have dreamed myself able to talk. Actually, I would have fixed everything my twin had done -- bring back everyone who was lost, change Estelle back the way she was -- and then make myself able to talk.

Oh, wait.

I would also have gone to that State Home to see what I could do for Grace’s mom.

Oh, and one more thing. I would have returned to the city on the mountain -- for real, this time -- to see if I could do anything to bring back Angela and her people, lost now for all these years. Then, after I did all that, I would make myself able to talk.

We probably would have stayed on in Beaver’s Tail a lot longer, but Sybil got nervous when the school year started. Her boss was a lady who had a daughter about my age, and she kept asking whether I would be in the same grade as her kid. At first, Sybil didn’t have a good explanation for why I wasn’t in school -- then I reminded her that I was severely autistic. That held for a few days, before a social worker showed up at our door to tell us abut the Special Ed program at the school a couple of towns over.

We left the next morning.

We ran into the same trouble in the next couple of towns. Sybil finally managed to get her hands on some fake documents that showed that she was not only a certified teacher, but a special ed teacher. We were pioneers in the home schooling movement. That pretty much took care of the problem. (No one ever bothered to ask, that I know of, why someone with her qualifications was working as a waitress. I guess teachers don’t make that much money.) Even so, she would sometimes get in trouble for leaving me home alone all day. Once in a while, just for appearances sake, we would go through a month or two where I would have a “babysitter” look after me. These were tiresome periods, as I was not allowed to go outside much, and I had to pretend not to be able to communicate or do much of anything useful.

It wasn’t long before I was older, and we didn’t have to bother with babysitters any more. We ended up in a town on the Oregon coast between Lincoln City and Newport. The town was called Smithfield, and it became our home for nearly seven years.  Life was  good there. The dreams stopped altogether. I spent a lot of time at the beach and wandering in the woods. The public library was good, much better than the one in Beaver’s Tail. After a while, I began doing my own research on the problem that Todd and the others were working on when we separated. The description of it that Angela gave me in that final dream lacked the precision of Todd’s mathematical model, but the spiral shape of the water flowing out of the fountain stayed with me and guided me to a better understanding of what was happening.

Not to mention a better understanding of who and what I am.

The five-year mark passed without mention. Sybil and I never discussed the home or the others, or the plan that she had agreed to on the night she took me away. I could tell that she was afraid of what would happen to us -- to me, -- if we ever were to try to get back in touch with the others.  It was a very hard thing. On the one hand, I wanted so much to return to Colorado and find my friends, to learn what had happened to Angela and her people. To get to work on the problem in earnest with Todd and Dr. MacHale.

But on the other hand…we had this life together, Sybil and I. We were a family. However small and strange and unexpected it might be, for once I had a family that wanted to keep me, that didn’t want to drop me off on a doorstep or send me out alone in the middle of the night. I know that isn’t fair to Todd or Judy or Lucinda. I know they never wanted me to leave, and only sent me away for my own good.

But then years went by. I grew up. And as much as I wanted to be back with them…it was a different life. A long time ago.

Sybil wanted us to stay there, and so there we stayed.

And then Jerry came along.

___

He was a regular at the diner where she waited tables. She brought him his breakfast almost every day for four years. And almost every day for four years, he tried to catch her eye. Sybil ignored every smile, every joke, every friendly overture. I would stop by the diner once and a while, and whenever I was there at breakfast time, so was Jerry. They might as well have put the poor guy’s name on that booth. I told Sybil she ought to give him a chance, but that only made her mad.

“Is that all the better you think I can do?” she would ask. “He’s so old. And do you know what he does for a living?”

I did know. He was maintenance man at the water treatment plant. Sure, it wasn’t a glamorous job, but then neither was waiting tables at the diner. (Not that I would have ever pointed that out.) Anyway, one day I decided that I would take pity on him even if my foster mother wouldn’t.

He was playing solitaire in the booth in front of mine. He often came in early  in order to bask in the glow of Sybil’s indifference for as long as possible before going to work. Sometimes after finishing eating he would read the paper or do a crossword. And sometimes he would play solitaire.

 It was a cloudy day out and I could actually follow the progress of his game reflected in the window. His playing slowed down from one flip of the card to the next, until finally it looked as though he was done. He was just about to scoop up the cards when I appeared at his table and motioned him to stop.

Jerry looked truly surprised. I guess he knew who I was, but he had never tried to say hello to me. I think he was scared of me. I picked up a paper napkin from the dispenser and motioned for him to hand me his pen. He did so, unclipping it from his shirt pocket.

On the napkin, I scrawled the words $5 SAYS I CAN WIN GAME.

Jerry looked at the note and then looked back up at me.

“Is that right? Well, let’s see your money, Sport.”

He had me there. I had no money. I cocked my head towards the counter, behind which stood Sybil, obliviously pouring coffee.

“What, you say you’re momma’s going to cover your bet?” Jerry was talking a bit louder now, apparently trying to get Sybil’s attention. “I don’t think so, Sport. Not unless she says so.”

I really didn’t think that idea was going to fly, so I turned the napkin over and wrote another note.

I CAN PREDCT  NEXT CRD.

Jerry had been through the deck several times. Once would have been enough for me to get the order of the cards down.

“Okay,” said Jerry. “What is it?”

I took the pen and appended my note: FOR $5?

Jerry laughed.

“Sure, Sport. For five dollars.”

I grabbed another napkin and wrote 4CLB.

Jerry flipped the card. Of course it was the four of clubs.

He laughed out loud.

“Now how the heck did you do that?” he asked. He started to reach for his wallet. I motioned him to stop. At the bottom of the napkin I wrote

1 MORE, DBL OR NOTHNG?

Jerry nodded.

On a fresh napkin, I wrote JCK SPD.

In all, there were 11 cards left in the deck. Jerry finally gave up after nine but, through the magic of Double or Nothing, by then he owed me almost thirteen hundred dollars. He looked at me suspiciously.

“What did you do, Sport, mark this deck?”

I shook my head. I pointed to the window. The booth where I had been sitting was clearly reflected.

Jerry shook his head, laughing.

“Well, I’m afraid I don’t have quite that much on me,” he said. “Will you take on IOU?”

I shook my head. At the bottom of the last napkin, I wrote

NO BET JUST 4 FUN

Then I got an idea. I took out another napkin and wrote:

COME HAVE DINNER W/US 2NIGHT

Jerry looked at the invitation, then looked back up towards the counter. Sybil was apparently doing something in the back. She had missed our entire game.

“Now, Sport, I don’t think that would be such a good idea.”

I took out another napkin and wrote our address. At the bottom I added

6:30
DON’T BE LATE
BRING FLWRS

As I straightened myself up,  I could see in the window that Sybil was standing behind me with a coffee pot.

“Cor-- Joe what are you doing?” she asked. She looked pretty upset. By then she didn’t worry as much about people “finding out about me” as she had in the early days, but it was still pretty unusual for me to strike up a conversation with somebody at the diner. Jerry deftly slid all the napkins into his lap while I turned around. I shrugged at her, kissed her on the cheek, and headed back to my booth. Later she would be furious when she found out what I had done. But, as I hardly need point out, it worked out all right in the end. Anyhow, when I walked away, I left poor Jerry to deal with her wrath. He didn’t seem to mind, though. At least she was finally paying attention to him.

“What’s going on?” she demanded.

“Nothing, ma’am,” he said, gesturing towards the cards on the table. “Just playing some cards with the boy.”