© Anna-Karin 2001
Author's Note: I wrote this story as a Thank-You Gift to Tama, a Japanese girl who translated one of my stories into Japanese.
Thank You, Tama.
Gene Watson looked at the wall calendar one morning and realized that exactly a year
had passed. A whole year!
But it felt like it had happened only yesterday. But it had been a year ago since that
Day From Hell. Gene still woke up at night, fearing that Lynn might have been kidnapped.
He phoned the school, at least twice a week, to check that no strangers had tried to make
contact with her. He still looked over his shoulder to make sure he was not followed by
that Man Of Nightmares. He had even moved across the continent from California to New York,
to get away from the memories. And the dreams.
Schmidt Smith, Smithey to his friends, not that he had many of them, sat at his table,
in the kitchen of his small but comfortable apartment, in a middle-class part of New York.
He was trying to write a letter.
It is not always easy to write a letter. Sometimes it is quite hard to find the right words
to explain certain things to a certain person.
In this case it was to explain why one had kidnapped somebody's daughter in order to force
that somebody to take an active part in an assassination of a certain senator.
It took a lot of drafts, and a lot of checking in dictionaries, but in the end Smithey managed to write down a couple of pages. Then he put the letter in an envelope together with a small gift.
"Mr. Watson
It was for Andy that I did everything I did that day.
You ask: Who's Andy?
Andy is my brother.
Andy is autistic. This means he has difficulties in understanding the world around him.
He is also incapable of handling new things. He do not like surprises. He likes to live
his days according to a seldom-changing schedule. This gives him a sense of order in an
otherwise chaotic world. To him order means safety. When he feels safe he can be able to
put up with changes as long as they do not affect his life or his belongings.
Two hours before I saw you for the first time, I was told that I had to participate in a
very crazy plan to kill the senator, or else they would hurt my brother.
I had promised Andy's and my parents that I would always take care of Andy. I saw no other
choice but to dance along to the music, and hope I would manage to get out of this somehow.
Then you and your daughter entered the stage. You defended your daughter against a couple
of thugs with inlines at the station. The way you did it impressed me, and made me think
that maybe you could thwart the plot and save yourself, your daughter, Andy and me.
And you did. I had to push you, of course, but in the end you saved us all. By shooting me
you freed me of the suspicions that they might have had about my loyalty. In that moment
you saved Andy. Your performance wasn't the only thing watched the whole time. I too was
watched, and I had to play my part to the end. One moment later and I would have shot your
daughter. Not to kill, but to please those that was watching. To assure them of my loyalty.
You know what happened next. An ambulance came for me and brought me out of the story.
I was put in a private hospital under an assumed name.I was there for the next three months.
They wanted to do some plastic surgery on me, but I said no. Andy would not have recognized
me if I came to visit him with a whole new face. Instead they kept me out of the investigation.
There never was a Mr. Smith on the security staff. No wonder no-one would believe you when
you talked of a Mr. Smith. My name was efficiently erased from the payrolls and all other
papers. Ms. Jones got to take the whole heat.
My record is clean. Nobody can pin anything on me. Yes, I'm gloating here.
The point of this letter is that I want to give you something in return for your help.
This gift might be of some use in your job.
Sincerely yours
S. Smith"
The letter had been delivered to Gene Watson, straight to his desk where he worked for
Brooks & Miller, an accounting bureau. The letter had been addressed to him, and him
alone.
The mail boy had teased him about it. 'No love letters allowed at the office, don't you
know?'
He looked at the stamp. It showed that the letter had been sent from Brooklyn, New York,
a couple of days before. There were no other clues to the identity of the sender, other
than maybe the contents of the letter and the stamp. The envelope was of the padded kind,
and inside was a letter, a diskette and two pieces of cardboard. Gene decided that the
cardboard was to protect the diskette.
Gene read the letter. Then he read it again. Then he looked at the little blue diskette
that had been in the envelope together with the letter.
He hoped it was not some sort of device that would blow up in his hands, or leak some
viruses to his computer. Then he remembered that he had a virus scanning tool on his PC.
"I'll wiew this", he said to himself, "and then I'll decide what to do."
His thoughts wandered once more to that day, when he, an accountant had been pulled
into that conspiracy.
He had since then quit his former job as an accountant at a private accounting bureau
in California and gotten a new job at this accounting bureau in New York. He thought
that in New York it was easy to dissapear in the crowds, and to hide in plain sight.
A few minutes later Gene understood what it was he was looking at on the computer screen. The supposedly deleted and thoroughly erased bookkeeping of a company he and one of his coworkers were investigating at Brooks & Mercy. They had been sweating over the empty hard desk drives trying to recover any kind of evidence. Here it was. Everything, and quite clearly enough to bust this company for tax fraud and embezzlement.
The elated feeling gave way quickly for a feeling of dread. How had Mr. Smith known?
That's something quite sad about love. Not the perfect-for each-other-kind of love. That's all cupids and hearts. We're talking about the unrequited kind of love that the wolf might have for the deer. When this happen, it's enough to break your heart. You see; the deer fears the wolf, and won't believe that this particular wolf would not harm it. The deer thinks it's all a scam. The wolf know this, and know that whatever it does it will never be enough to make the deer trust it, let alone love it.
Schmidt Smith was a wolf in love with a deer.
The Jean Arons' Memorial Home For Adults With Autism was a very good institution. Smithey
had checked it carefully before letting his brother live there.
The personnel were specially trained for caring for people with autism, and they were
regularly sent to seminars and courses in order to learn more about their clients. They
were also paid well.
Smithey had also checked the financial situation and found that it was sound. He had even
spent a week there, working as a gardener, just to make sure the Home was not a scam.
Andy had his own room, as did all the other clients of the Home. He did not have much furniture in his room, a bed, a chair and a table. There were a book-shelf and a built-in wardrobe and chest of drawers. But the walls were covered with Andy's drawings and sketches.
Andy himself was sitting on a bench in the garden. He was watching a caterpillar crawling over the back of the bench. There was something very mysterious about how the little creature just knew in which order it had to lift and sink various part of its body, so it could move forward. Andy was fascinated, but did notice that there were someone approaching him, coming from the house. He looked up.
"Hello Smithey."
"Hello Andy."
"How are you?" They had taught Andy how to greet someone, and now Andy stuck to this
ceremonial exchange of words whether he liked it or not.
"I'm fine", Smithey answered, " and how are you?"
"Fine."
"Have you done any new drawings?"
"Yes."
"What have you drawn then?"
"I have made a drawing of the roses over there. And a drawing of the pond seen from the
wiew of the statue of the boy with the dolphin."
"Can I see them?"
"Yes."
There was a moments silence as Smithey tried to put into words the fact that he wanted to
see the drawings, and still sound polite. Andy did not understand that a question could
be used to express a wish.
"I want to see them", said Smithey.
"Okay."
They went up to the pavilion where Andy lived. When they entered the house, Smithey nodded
approvingly at the clean floors and windows. He knew that the clients were trained to
help out with the maintenance after their abilities, and Andy was good at weeding out in
the kitchen garden.
"These are good", said Smithey.
Andy nodded. Of course they were good. He had always been good at drawing. It was the only
thing that he never had had no problems doing. Everything else was much more difficult.
"I know", said Andy.
"Do you sleep well here?" asked Smithey. If Andy didn't sleep well, it meant he was worried
about something, and if Andy slept well, it meant he felt safe and calm.
"I sleep well, all night, every night."
"Good."
"I made a drawing for you."
Andy picked up one of the drawings on the desk and handed it to Smithey.
"Thank you", said Smithey. The drawing was of the wiew from the window in Andy's room.
It was a lovely spring-time picture with blossoming trees in the park. Andy had put down
a lot of work on this drawing.
"I'll have someone to put this in a frame. It's gorgeous."
Andy didn't say anything, and Smithey didn't take offense. Andy had yet to understand
when one was to say 'thank you' for a compliment. The staff had told him they were
working on it.
Smithey had gotten a very nice sum of money for his work from the people who had wanted to see the senator dead. This he had invested in a small business, a café with internet access, with a post box service on the side. He had three employees, of which only one knew about the boss' past. Purity Grace was also the one who hacked into the computers of certain companies. Usually it was to pit her brains against the companies securities. Sometimes her boss would ask her to find something for him. Smithey would often specify exactly it was he wanted Purity to find, and where it could be. Purity liked those assignments. She called them 'flowers' because Smithey once had told her to send the information to a certain employee at a certain accounting bureau.
Right now Purity was tending to one of the computers that had crashed for some reason. One
of the guests seemed to have misjudged the ability of the computer to handle the
downloading of extremely huge files.
"You know", she said in a semi-rural drawl to no-one in particular, "when there's a choice
between an one-megabyte file, and fifteen hundred-kilobyte files, and both options got
the same content, why pick the one that's going to make the computer crash?"
"I don't know", replied Smithey, who had heard the earlier commotion from his office in
the back room. The offending client had left in a hurry. But he was not a regular, so
Smithey did not think he had lost anything by that little incident.
"From one thing to other", said Purity and put aside her accent, "how did that flame of
yours like the flower?"
"Haven't heard anything."
"I'll keep my fingers crossed."
"I appreciate that."
Gene was confused. Luckily Lynn had been too busy talking about her friends at the school
to notice that her father was a bit absentminded.
That night found Gene twisting and turning in his bed. Erratic thoughts were buzzing
around like bees in a hive. The letter from Mr. Smith had put a new twist on the things
he thought he knew. Only a few hours ago everything had been so certain, as if carved in
stone, and now...
Mr. Smith shot people to prove a point. Mr. Smith tried to protect his brother.
Mr. Smith had almost killed Gene's daughter. Gene had almost killed Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith had sent a gift to Gene. Gene had used the gift to expose a huge fraud.
Mr. Smith had not taken revenge. Gene and Lynn was no longer in danger.
Maybe they never had been in any danger from Mr. Smith.
When Gene eventually fell asleep that night, his dreams about Mr. Smith had changed. The next morning he had to change the sheets, and he did feel a bit embarrassed. He really was not fifteen years old anymore.
Weeks passed. Gene got used to the feeling of not having to be afraid anymore. He was still on his guard, but no more than any other parent would be.
One saturday, in the midst of summer, Gene and Lynn went to Coney Island. Lynn had wanted to see it, and Gene had bowed to the will of his daughter. It was either that or having her sulking for the rest of the weekend.
Coney Island was full of things to look at, and to take a ride on. Lynn wanted to try the
roller coaster, but was told by both her father *and* the attendant that she was to young,
and too small for it. But the swirling teacups and the classical merry-go-round with
the gaily painted horses was just perfect for both Lynn's age and Gene's stomach.
Then there were the shooting ranges with both moving targets and guns, as well as piles
of wineglasses one was supposed to hit with a tennis ball. Gene and Lynn walked from
stand to stand to watch the Coney Island wonders. There were a guy that made small figures
out of rods of glass, and over there was a girl who had taught her parrot to pick fortunes
from a pile of tightly rolled pieces of paper, each inscribed with a prediction.
Lynn wanted to have her fortune told by the funny parrot who could recite a whole speech
from a famous movie. 'Hello, little man...'
Gene asked the girl how much it would cost.
"A buck, one prediction."
"One for me and one for Lynn then."
"Me first", said Lynn.
The parrot picked one. Lynn unrolled it and then asked Gene to read it for her.
"You will make new friends." Gene read out loud.
"What does that mean?" asked Lynn.
"We'll find out. My turn."
Gene's fortune was even more mysterious. 'The hunter has laid down his gun.'
He paid the girl, and asked her where she got the lines from.
"They come to me. And sometimes I just make them up", said the girl.
Gene was buying a hot dog for Lynn from a hot-dog man standing near a shooting range. As he pondered the healthiness of the meal Lynn was busy eating, he heard a voice. That voice was familiar. He couldn't place it at first, but then he remembered.
Mr. Smith!
Gene looked around to see where that voice came from. His eyes fell on a familiar figure standing at the shooting range, gun in hand. Gene's heart skipped a beat, before he saw that Mr. Smith was aiming at one of the targets at the other end of the shooting range.
One. Two. Three bull's-eyes. The attendant handed Mr. Smith a huge stuffed blue teddy bear.
Then Mr. Smith turned around and saw Gene. They looked at each other for a moment.
Mr. Smith lifted a hand in greeting, holding the teddy bear in the other.
He was smiling.
"Hello, Mr. Watson. Nice to meet you, and Miss Watson too, of course."
Gene nodded and tried on a smile. It was not easy.
"How do you do, Mr. Smith," he said as they shook hands.
"Isn't he a bad man?" said Lynn.
"Back when we met for the first time, I happened to give you and your father a very bad
scare. But I was forced to do that. I'm not going to scare you now", said Mr. Smith.
Lynn regarded him suspiciously. She turned to her father.
"Is it true?"
Gene met Mr Smith's eyes. They were not hard and expressionless this time, but
soft and a little worried. He made his decision.
"Yes, dear; he speaks the truth, this time."
For the rest of that day the three of them strolled about at Coney Island. Lynn soon got Mr. Smith to give her the big blue teddy bear, and upon finding that it was a bit too heavy for her to carry around, asked Mr. Smith to carry it for her. They all laughed at this as Mr. Smith made a huge show of insisting on carrying both her and the teddy bear. Lynn made an equally huge show of graciously declining the offer. Gene thought that hell must indeed have frozen over, if they now could be on such good terms with Mr. Smith.
"Call me Smithey", said Mr. Smith.
"If you call me Gene", Gene replied.
When their paths parted that evening Smithey gave Gene his card, with both phone number
and e-mail address.
"In case you need help."
Smithey felt like dancing all over his apartment, just like Fred Astaire, when he got home from the Coney Island. Gene actually did trust him.
Gene on the other hand wanted to trust Smithey but was not certain he could be trusted at all. This gave Gene yet another night of pondering. There were a couple of things that he really had to think about before he could come to a decision. So he thought about them.
A couple of days later Gene phoned the number he had gotten from Smithey. It was a request
to pick up Lynn at her school, since Gene had to work overtime that day.
"I've phoned her school too, so they know you're coming."
"Okay. But where shall I take her?"
"My job. You know the address?"
"Yeah."
"I'll see you and Lynn here."
Approximately an half hour after the time when Lynn usually finished school, she and
Smithey arrived to the office of Brooks & Miller.
"We took a cab", said Smithey. "Took a while for the driver to find the place."
"And there was a traffic jam too!" said Lynn.
Gene motioned towards an unoccupied desk and asked them to take a seat there. Then he
wondered if anyone was hungry.
"I'll be stuck here for the rest of the evening, so take-out is the only choice for
dinner to-night."
"Pizza!" said Lynn.
Smithey started to rise from his chair.
"I'd better leave now." said he.
"Can't you stay? To keep an eye on Lynn for me?" Gene asked.
Smithey immediatley sat down again and told Lynn that pizza was a good choice.
Gene ordered three pizzas since everyone wanted different toppings. Smithey said he was
going to pay for his own, and Gene agreed. When the food arrived, they sat down on the
floor behind Gene's desk, and made the dinner an indoor pique-nique.
"This is the first time I've had a dinner on the floor", said Smithey.
"Mum did it a lot", said Lynn.
"She liked pique-niques", said Gene, "and when it rained, we'd have it indoors."
"She must have been a lovely lady."
"She was, most of the time", said Gene.
"She's an angel now", said Lynn.
"Sorry to hear that."
"We were to divorce anyway, but she died in a traffic accident before that happened."
When the dinner was over, and the empty pizza boxes had been put in the trash can, Gene continued his work. Meanwhile Smithey played tic-tac-toe with Lynn.
Gene had gone through most of the paperwork, when he suddenley glanced over to the
other side of the desk. It felt like looking on a painting of an Old Master, one of
those cosy interiors with a whole family gathered around a table, with children playing
with toys and adults playing cards.
Only in this setting it was an adult and a child
playing tic-tac-toe in the cold light of a modern lightbulb. Gene thought of those calm
and harmonious colours that gave even the most boisterous pictures an unexpected
serenity. Somehow he felt as if he was standing in the other end of the room watching
the scene with himself almost hidden behind piles of paper, only his glasses and dark
hair reflecting the light, rest of him hidden in the dark. And all the light was on
Smithey and Lynn. To his surprise, Gene found that he liked this picture.
Gene shook his head and returend to the papers.
When Lynn and Gene sat in the taxi on their way home, Lynn told her father something
that gave him some pause.
"Smithey asked me if you had a girlfriend."
"When did he ask you this?"
"When we played tic-tac-toe. He whispered so you wouldn't hear."
"Oh... What did you say?"
"I said that you hadn't got one."
"Okay."
"Then he asked me if it was okay with me if he asked you out for a date."
When Gene had finished coughing, he asked Lynn what she had said to that.
"That I wouldn't mind. He's like Tom's dad."
"Who's Tom?"
"He's in my class. His dad has a boyfriend, and his mom has a wife."
Gene pondered this for a while, and when they come home he asked Lynn what she thought
of all this.
"Smitheys' nice. He's got a brother who is a painter but can't take care of himself.
So Smithey takes care of him. His name is Andy."
Once again Gene had a sleepless night as he thought about the events of the day. Now he knew that Smithey was trustworthy, and got along well with Lynn. Had it been a woman, Gene would have asked her out for a date. Smithey happened to be a man, and wanted to take Gene out on a date. This didn't repulse him at all. It was strange, but he had already gotten used to the idea.
Gene walked down memory lane in his thoughts. The first time he had a crush on someone,
it had been the prettiest girl in the school. The second time it was the pitcher in the
school's baseball team. As he had grown up, he had gotten used to suppress the feelings
he might have had for people of his own gender. Instead he had concentrated on the girls.
The last one he had taken out for a date had been Lynn's mother. She had figured him out
long before he himself had. She had been the one to tell him he was bi, but that had
not been the reason for their divorce. They'd simply grown apart. Nothing more dramatic
than that.
Then there was Smithey. Smithey who had pulled him through the worst ninety minutes of his life. Smithey who asked his daughter for permission to date her father. Smithey who had a brother named Andy, whom he'd protect with any means avaiable.
"I guess", Gene said to himself, "that I'd like to see Smithey as my husband and Lynn's stepfather." The words felt right. He was happy that he had managed to put words to his feelings at last.
Smithey lay in his bed and was thinking about the previous evening. It had been nice sitting with Gene and Lynn in that office. It had made him feel as if he belonged together with them. As if they actually might be a family. Well, it would be an odd one. Dad, stepdad, child and a stepuncle. Smithey smiled at that. Maybe he could phone Gene tomorrow and ask him out for a date.
They both dreamed good dreams about each other.
"Schmidt Smith here."
"Hello, Smithey. It's Gene."
"Oh! Hello!"
"Have you planned anything for friday?"
"No..."
"Would you like to go on a date with me?"
"...Yes!
"There's this Chineese restaurant..."
"What about Lynn?"
"I've asked old Mrs Lewis down the hall to look after her."
"Great."
The food was good. The wine was great. The conversation was enlightening. Gene talked about his job, and Smithey about his café. From there to the art of bookkeeping and the art of gambling on horses. Then about schools for Lynn. Eventually Smithey started to talk about Andy.
"He was just like all other kids when he was born. Nobody could see that it was anything
wrong with him. I was six when he was born. I had wanted a baby brother to play with.
I was a bit dissapointed because he could not run around already, but mom said he would
grow big and smart.
He did grow up, but talking came later. And when he started, all he did was to repeat
what other people said. We, my friends and I, used to call him Andy the Echo. But if
you put a pen in his hand and a piece of paper in front of him, he'd draw better than
anyone else in the neighborhood. When he was five, it became clear to everyone that
Andy wasn't gonna grow out of it. Mom and dad took him to a doctor who couldn't find
anything wrong with him, but recomennded another doctor. So they took him there, and
that doctor said; 'Andy's autistic.'
The books mom and dad found about it all blamed
the parents for the kid's problems. But mom refused to believe that. She was from
Germany. She had seen authorities being wrong before. Now the latest research say that
it's an chemical imbalance in the brain that affects the way Andy sees the world.
Mom and dad took care of Andy the best they could. But he grew big, and strong. And they
grew old, and wasn't that strong anymore. So I had to take over. I looked after him for
two years, and that was five years ago. Found I couldn't manage a business and look
after Andy at the same time, so I had to look for someplace nice to look after him.
The first place was really bad. The staff there beat him and drugged him into obedience.
So I had to find another place. That's where he lives now. It's a good place. Not a scam."
Gene nodded. He looked at the tall, thin man sitting across the table. This was a man who had put his family before himself. Just like Gene.
"It this the first time you've done something just for yourself?"
"What?"
"This date. Just going out on a date with me, just because *you* want to."
Smithey sat in silence for a long moment.
"Since I'm the one responsible for my brother, now when mom and dad has moved to a
'sunset paradise' in Florida, the answer must be yes."
"Do they know you're...?"
"They think it's great. Means I'll have more time for Andy. Took them a while to start
looking at things that way though."
"I see." said Gene.
"Does *your* parents know...?"
"I'm working up the courage."
"Good luck."
"Thanks."
The conversation moved on to other topics.
That evening, when they said good-bye outside the door to the house where Gene lived, Smithey kissed Gene for the first time.
THE END