Across the Spectrum (61 page)

Carolyn squeezed my hand under the table. “Doctor, we’d like
to try,” she said.

“I suppose we could—” Dr. Mandel said, voice slightly
uncertain.

“Is this necess—?”

Carolyn cut me short. “I know he can benefit,” she said. “I
don’t think we mentioned it earlier, but Denny received gene therapy before he
was born, to cure a congenital heart defect.”

“Oh!” the doctor said. “In that case, he’s pre-qualified. Be
sure to fill out all the forms, you two. We’re conducting multi-treatment
longitudinal studies and your son is an ideal candidate.”

So, Denny got the blue ribbon in math.

He got so into math that he stayed inside almost all the
time. He hardly wanted to play with his friends any more. We were supposed to
start Pony League football.

But Denny didn’t want to play. He didn’t want to try for
T-Ball, either.

The only thing he’d talk about was math.

One day, Carolyn pointed out that Denny was getting a little
chunky.

“He was size eight last month,” she said. “Now I’ve got to
buy the next size up.”

“So? My mom told me I grew three sizes and four inches one
summer.”

“Your mom said all kinds of things,” Carolyn said.

Mom had passed last spring. We used to joke about her seeing
Denny through high school. It wasn’t meant to be.

“Could you give it a rest, Carolyn?” My wife thought that
seven months was long enough. For mourning.

She forged ahead. “Denny’s getting fat, Gary. We can’t let
him get overweight.”

“So, we’ll put him on a diet,” I said. I’d been a little
chunky when I was his age. When my mom found out how much time I could waste
playing video games, she ripped the whole console out of the wall. It was the
cold-turkey video game withdrawal method. I lost the weight.

We tried a diet, but Denny was too young to understand why
he couldn’t eat everything he liked. I wasn’t surprised when a couple of
frustrating weeks later, Carolyn told me that she’d called Dr. Mandel.

There was of course a gene therapy—the most popular one of
all—to deal with unwanted weight gain. This time, the virus carrying altered
DNA helped to increase some of the hormones in the brain that controlled
appetite and metabolism.

Voila! A thin kid.

That was Denny’s third treatment.

The rain is imploding on the roof. It’s almost in my head.

“Turn up the heat!” I scream.

The house complies. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost
think that the house was sulking.

After the obesity treatment, Denny started getting into
soccer. And discovered his talent for art.

By thirteen, Denny was Dr. Mandel’s best patient. He had
even been featured on the cover of Parenting with two other kids that had been
helped by Dr. Mandel’s gene practice. It wasn’t exactly as if gene therapy was
cutting-edge any more. Dr. Mandel was known for his “boutique” practice. That
meant that he helped parents with money and fine-edged concerns about their
children’s growth and well-being.

No one really took the dire warnings of the early part of
the millennium seriously.

Creating a “master race” and so on. Well, heck. If a person
could get a little bit better in some way, and it wasn’t hurting them or
anybody else, how did that qualify as a “master race?” People without genetic
improvements were never looked down upon.

Sure, it was a generational thing. I mean, there were some
skin therapies for people my age and Carolyn’s age. And they had learned how to
rejuvenate most of the vital organs. When I was young, it was a big deal for anybody
to make it to age 100. These days, you had to hit 120 and look really good to
get your picture on the newslinks.

It was the kids that benefited. If somebody would have told
me back in the day that a Pugsley kid could turn into a hunk in a matter of
weeks, or a kid with no chin could suddenly acquire a nice, square one without
surgery, I would have laughed out loud. You were what you were born to be.

Up until he was nine or ten, Denny’s eyes were kind of a
hazel color. Now they were piercing, bright blue. The girls went crazy over his
eyes. I mean, the kid was a good-looking fifteen, but—

The house chimed. Somebody was calling.

“Gary here,” I answered.

“Is Denny home?” came a petite, snippy little voice.

“Yes, but he’s sleeping. Tired out after his game.” I didn’t
share that he’d had yet another treatment—this one to deal with a few pimples,
of all things. Kids slept a lot after a treatment. Body change and metabolic
readjustment, supposedly. Dr. Mandel likened it to “growing pains.”

“Oh, well, like we were supposed to be . . .
studying. . . for chemistry tonight,” the little voice said. After a moment’s
pause, she added, “This is Candy.”

“I thought you were Apple,” I said. She sounded like the
girl Denny had introduced me to named “Apple.” Apple was a cheerleader, and—

“No, I’m Candy,” she said vehemently. “I don’t see how you
could confuse us. Apple is completely shallow and self-centered and she can’t
pass math. I’m the captain of the Debate Team.”

“Oh,” I said. Of course she was Debate Team Captain. “My
mistake. Apple calls a lot.”

“Oh,” Candy said. “I see.”

“Denny hardly ever takes her calls,” I said. This was
utterly untrue, but for some reason, I enjoyed the thought of the little white
lie that was involved.

“Oh,” she said, voice brightening. “Well, just tell Denny
that I called. Thank you, Mr. Gill.” And she broke the connection.

So I went upstairs.

“Hey,” I said, waking Denny. “A girl called.”

Denny rose, shaking sleep out of his eyes. “Yeah? Who was
it, Dad?”

“Apple,” I said. “Wait—no, Candy.”

“Candy,” Denny said, smiling slyly. “She likes me, I think.”

“She’s the jealous type too,” I said. “What are you doing to
attract all these girls, Denny?”

Denny scooted up in bed and swung his legs to the floor. He
started rubbing his shoulder. “Hurt it a little bit in the game,” he said.

“How’d it go?”

“Not bad,” he said. “We won by two goals. I got the last
goal.”

Of course you did, I thought. I hadn’t gone to the game.
Somehow, I just hadn’t wanted to. It was raining. I said it was crazy to play
soccer in the rain. Watching soccer in the rain was even crazier.

I couldn’t put my finger on the real reason I hadn’t gone to
the game. Carolyn was at work, of course. She had a fulfilling, demanding job
at the local art museum. She put together their brochures and maintained their
web presence. Everybody says what artistic talent she has. It’s really amazing
how Denny has the same abilities—maybe even more so. Paintings, drawings,
vector art—Denny does it all. He would be taking sculpture, if it didn’t
conflict with soccer practice.

Denny got up and started to strip off his clothes. He was
only fifteen, but his chest and biceps were more muscular than mine. Not just
at that age—now.

He sprinted into his bathroom and called for the house to
turn on the shower.

“Did you order more aftershave, Dad?” he called.

“Yeah,” I said. “Yesterday.”

“Oh, right,” Denny said. “It’s all full now—I can see it.”

Of course I ordered aftershave. When you work from home, all
those little chores seem to fall on you. Tell the house what to cook for
dinner, tell it to keep the different meals ready at different times for
everyone’s schedule, see to it the laundry schedule isn’t too full and
somebody—namely Denny—isn’t going to have to run to a soccer game and play in a
dirty jersey. Make sure all the plants are watered and trimmed and the rug is
vacuumed and the floor polished and there are no lights out and there—

“Hey Dad, what should I do about Candy?” Denny asked from
the shower.

“Do about what?”

“She likes me, Dad. I like her fine as a friend, but I don’t
want to get serious. She’s just not—”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing,” Denny said.

“Well, if there’s nothing wrong with her, why don’t you like
her?” I knew perfectly well what he meant, but I was just playing with his
mind.

“I mean like, Dad. As in . . . you know . . .
”

“You’re supposed to be the genius,” I said. “I don’t know,
so explain it to me.”

I don’t know what I expected to hear. “She’s homely, Dad.”
Or, “She comes on too strong.” Or, maybe, “She’s pretty nerdy.”

“She’s a mundane, Dad,” Denny said. “I just can’t get
interested in a girl who’s never had any type of modifications.”

I said, “Oh.”

I sat on the bed. I think it was the way he said it.

Denny came out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his
Adonis-like frame. “Dad, you know how it is,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I mean, look at Apple. She might not be that smart, but
she’s got a great body. She does a five-minute mile, and her nails are perfect.
I know her hair’s not real, but what does that matter? It looks great.”

“Apple’s a nice girl,” I said.

A long time ago when Denny was a baby, my mother came over
and we spent the whole day playing. Building towers of blocks. Reading books.
Setting up paper and finger paints on the kitchen table. She baked cookies.

I watched my son and my mother playing together. His hair
was light brown and wispy over his hazel eyes. Maybe he looked like an old,
balding fat guy, but he was just a baby. There was a funny little cleft in his
chin. He was clumsy. We worked with him to use his right hand, then his left.
Just letting him experiment. She grabbed his outstretched hands in hers and
lifted him up. He giggled and stood and toddled, then soon sat back down. He
was only nine months.

Even a genetically modified baby can’t walk at nine months.

And it comes to me.

Why I didn’t go to the game.

I looked in Denny’s eyes a long while. Bright blue, they
were. There’s been nobody with blue eyes in my family for a long time. Maybe
there never were. I can’t say those were Carolyn’s eyes, either. She has muddy
brown eyes, and hates them.

Denny started to laugh, feeling uncomfortable. “Hey, Dad,
what are you looking at me like that for?”

I can’t reply.

“I’m just—you know—” I say, finally. I look over at Denny’s
artwork. At the trophies for soccer. Math ribbons. His poster, running for
class president last year.

Yeah, he won.

“Your mom threw your little kid football out this morning,”
I said.

“What football?” Denny asked.

It was no big deal, I guess. I really didn’t know how to
explain.

I heard him on the phone after dinner.

Talking up that Apple.

“Yeah, baby. I know it’s hard. But everyone’s parents are
pretty much mundanes. You should see my dad.”

It wasn’t like I hadn’t had my own rough spots with my dad.
I wanted to run in and grab the vox away from Denny. Yell. Tell her to respect
her parents. Tell him.

Denny never knew my father. Carolyn’s dad was an old fart
who painted bowls of fruit and sad-eyed clowns.

He wasn’t a bad guy. He was just kind of . . .
distant.

There was no way to make Denny comprehend that my dad had
been a great guy. I mean, I hated Dad when he grounded me. I hated him when he
took my car away. I hated him when he flushed my sad little pot stash down the
can.

He taught me responsibility. He taught me what it meant to
be a man.

A mundane.

∞

Hush my feet, I told the house much later that night. The
house could do that, you know. Make it quiet to walk, or very noisy. Only the
administrator could tell it to do that. I know a lot of parents that use this
feature.

I was sleeping in my study again. No. I was lying on the
couch in the study, pretending to sleep.

It was easier. Carolyn always has some book she’s reading or
some work she’s going over and that light in my eyes drives me crazy.

I was turning the whole thing over in my mind.

All the little treatments. Yeah, it was right to fix Denny’s
heart.

We had to fix Denny’s heart.

Denny was the only son Carolyn and I were ever going to
have.

I used, back in the day, you know. Stacking. I was juiced up
all the time.

I thought it made me more of a man.

They said it was a minor miracle that Carolyn had gotten
pregnant, since I had a sperm count of about 3. Three million particles per ml.
And after that, it went down even more. They call that sterile.

She could have left me. Maybe if I had been in her shoes, I
would have. She could have had a lot more kids with a healthy man.

But this was our son. This was Denny.

One time, my dad was watching me at football practice. I
caught a right screen pass we’d been practicing a long time and raced away. My
legs were wings. The scrimmagers hurled themselves at me in slow motion. I was
flying, the wind whipping through the bars of my helmet. Nobody could touch me.

My dad had this look on his face when he ran out on the
field after that scrimmage.

We didn’t need to say too much. In fact, we didn’t say
anything.

I was his son, and he was my dad.

Then it started to rain, and we headed for our car.

I wandered into the kitchen, still remembering.

“Hey house, I’m going to make a sandwich,” I whispered. “I
want to use the last of that good bread.”

“Do you want me to slice it?” the house asked.

“No,” I said. “You know I cut it myself.”

“That’s right,” the house said. It put the bread and knife
out on the counter.

“Mustard?”

“Yes.”

“Lettuce?”

“No, just bologna.”

“Very good,” the house said. “Low-fat, high protein.”

“Right, house,” I said. “Thanks.”

I cut the bread for the sandwich. Put mustard on the bread.
Slapped down the meat, slapped the whole thing together and stuffed it in my
mouth.