BRIAN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

That afternoon Callie showed up carrying a new computer. It looked much more expensive than the one she got for Christmas.

"Where'd you get that?" I asked.

Instead of answering my question, she said that she wanted to go up to my room. "The manual actually has a section on amateur radio," she said. "It shows you how to hook a computer up to a transmitter."

"What good does that do?"

"No good unless you write a program." She unplugged the telegraph key and plugged in the computer. "A fairly simple program, actually."

"You mean--"

"When you want to transmit, simply press the letter X on the keyboard. When you want to stop, press Y."

I tried it without the antenna. The computer sent exactly what I had been sending--CQ Ireland CQ Ireland CQ Ireland DE and then my call letters.

"This is great," I said.

"I could make it better if I had a week or so. I could make it listen and call you if anybody used your station identification. You know, ring a buzzer or something. You could hear it from the garage. That way you could be out there doing whatever you wanted. Or down the basement."

"Callie," I said, "this is really great. But how can your parents afford to buy you another computer?"

She looked away. "Kind of hot up here," she said.

It was hot upstairs. The temperature didn't go down as the day went on. But I didn't mind much. We brought Squirrel up and got him to play for a while. I found an old Monopoly game in the top of the closet in my room, and we spent a few hours moving markers around the board and piling up fake money.

Nobody answered my CQ all afternoon.

"Why do you need to talk to Ireland anyhow?" asked Callie.

"To get permission to fly the autogyro."

"How are you going to do that?"

"Phone patch," I said. "I'll arrange a scheduled contact with someone in Ireland. Radiotelephone, not code. I'll use Mr. Kemp's equipment. He lives down the street."

"I still don't get it."

"Don't you know what a phone patch is?"

"Sure," said Callie. "Everybody knows that. Maybe you'd better explain it to me anyhow."

"I contact the radio operator in Ireland. He or she calls up the hotel where my parents are staying. By combining the radio and the phone, I talk to my parents. Simple as that."

"You don't seem to be having much luck."

"It takes time."

"If it takes much more time, you'll be able to contact them by shouting out the window."

"It's only Monday. They won't be back for a week."

"I still don't see why you have to talk to Ireland."

"What am I supposed to do instead?"

"You could say you talked to Ireland."

I felt the muscles in my eyebrows bunch.

"No, really," said Callie. "Think about it. Aunt Speed knows you're a ham."

"Please," I said. "Don't call me a ham."

"You could convince her. Just pretend you talked to your parents over the phone patch."

"Aren't you a little confused?" I asked her. "Timo's the liar in this family."

"It wouldn't be a lie exactly. You know your father would want you to fly it. You could phrase it so you wouldn't tell a lie."

"How?"

"Go down and say to Aunt Speed: I was just transmitting a CQ to Ireland. My father thinks it's O.K. if I fly the autogyro."

"And that's not a lie?"

"No. Not at all. You were transmitting a CQ to Ireland. Aunt Speed won't know what a CQ is. She'll assume it means you were talking to Ireland. And you do believe your father thinks it's O.K. for you to fly the autogyro."

"Callie," I said. "That seems worse than an honest lie."

"What do you mean, an honest lie?"

"You know."

"What I'm telling you to do would not be a lie at all. You'd be telling the strict truth."

"Maybe that's the trickiest way of lying."

"Think about it," she said. "You'll come around."

"I doubt it."

"Pretty hot in here. Why don't we go outside? Or down the basement?"

For some reason Callie didn't want me to transmit any more. As soon as she found out why I wanted to contact Ireland, her whole attitude changed.

"I don't want to quit yet," I said. "I'll set up a fan."

"I have to be going anyway," said Callie. "No use wearing your hand out. I have to take the computer home. But you can use it again tomorrow. Meanwhile, why don't you take a rest? No use wearing your hand out."

She went home and took her computer with her. After about half an hour, I began to see her point. If she had never brought the computer over in the first place, I could have kept going with a sore wrist. But the computer made it so easy that I didn't want to go back to the hard way. I decided to quit until after supper.

We had corned beef and cabbage. I hate corned beef and cabbage. It always seems to me that corned beef is trying to taste like ham. And when I eat cabbage cooked until it's soft, I have to control my gag reflex. Aunt Speed kept encouraging me to take more. I didn't want to hurt her feelings. I had to find some way to change the subject.

"I've been sending a CQ to Ireland," I heard myself say.

"Have you now?" said Aunt Speed. "And what might that be?"

"A radio signal."

"You've been talking to Ireland on the radio? Why didn't you tell me? If you do it again, there's some that would like to get a word in." She meant that she would like to talk to Ireland herself.

It would have been easy to lie.

"I didn't get an answer yet," I said. "It's all in code anyway. It wouldn't make any sense to you."

"You can translate, can't you?"

Of course I could.

A diabolical idea came to me then. If I really wanted to convince Aunt Speed, I could take her upstairs and let her listen to any code transmission from anywhere. I could translate it to mean whatever I wanted. She'd never know the difference. I could make it a message from my father, sent at a time he'd told me to listen. My father and I had arranged it all. I was supposed to listen on a certain frequency, and he would send me a message through a radio operator he knew in Ireland. The message would be How do you like the autogyro? and Have you taken it up in the air yet? Aunt Speed would never know the difference. If dad sent a code message giving me permission to fly, how could she say no? "Brian?" said Aunt Speed.

"Sorry," I said. "I was off somewhere."

"Daydreaming," she said. "That's all right. But if you talk to Ireland, let me know. I'd like to listen."

A line came into my head: And lead us not into temptation.

"Have more cabbage," said Aunt Speed.

"No thanks," I said. "I've had enough."

"There's plenty more," said Aunt Speed. "Maybe you'll want to have some before you go to bed."

"Maybe," I said.

"If so, help yourself," she said. "I'm not saving it for anybody else."


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Before I went to bed, I tried again. Atmospheric conditions are often better late at night. This time somebody answered. It was a man in Liverpool, England. He had a cousin in Ireland. He expected to talk to him early the next morning. They had a habit of making contact every morning before work.

His handle was Jake. His cousin's handle was Michael. I explained the situation, and Jake agreed to ask Michael to meet me on a certain frequency at nine p.m. Greenwich Mean Time the next night. If I wanted to join them early in the morning, I was welcome. I explained that I couldn't. I had to deliver newspapers. Then I had to serve Mass. Jake said that he would contact me at noon to report. He'd let me know if the contact at nine p.m. had been set up. We settled all the details. The contact at noon would still be code, but the one at nine p.m. would be radiotelephone. By that time I hoped I would have access to Mr. Kemp's equipment.

I hadn't been thinking clearly. I realized when we both signed off that I hadn't been translating Greenwich Mean Time into Eastern Standard Time, much less into Daylight Saving Time. Eastern Standard Time is five hours earlier than Greenwich Mean Time. With Daylight Saving Time taken into consideration, the hour in my city was four hours earlier than the hour in Greenwich, England. I was still talking to Jake at eleven p.m. Daylight Saving Time. That meant it was three a.m. in Liverpool. When Jake started transmitting at noon, I would be serving the eight-o'clock Mass. When Michael started transmitting at nine p.m. Greenwich Mean Time, it would be five p.m. at the Kemps' house. I hoped Jake wouldn't worry when I didn't answer him at noon. And I hoped that he and I had meant the same thing when we said tomorrow.

The next morning in the sacristy, Callie opened the closet and found a snake on the shelf at eye level. She screamed. Zubov started laughing. "What's the matter, Callie?" he asked. "Don't you like snakes?" Zubov knew that snakes terrified Callie. Zubov had several pet snakes, and once he brought them in to show the class. Students were allowed to come up and feel the scales. Most people think that snakes are slimey, but really they're dry and feel pleasant to the touch. Callie was the only one who refused to come up. The other girls ended up playing with the snakes. But Callie remained in her seat. "Maybe it's just this particular snake she doesn't like," said Zubov. "Here, try this one." He opened another closet and took out a snake. Callie was backing away from him. Zubov looped the snake around Callie's neck. "He likes you, Callie. In fact, I think he's in love with you."

Callie couldn't touch the snake even then. She crouched down and shrugged it off.

"Leave her alone," I said. "You know she's afraid of snakes."

"Girls are always scared of snakes at first," said Zubov. "Isn't that right, Ferraci?" Ferraci ignored him.

"Just take your snakes and get out of here," I said.

"But after a while even a little girl like Callie gets to like them. Here, try this one, Callie." Zubov opened a third closet and took out another snake. He hadn't left anything to chance. No matter what closet Callie had opened, she would have found a snake. Zubov held the snake in Callie's face.

I picked up the snake that was moving across the floor and took the other one out of the closet Callie had opened first. I started for the door. "I guess you don't want these any more," I said to Zubov. "So I'm letting them loose outside."

"You do and you'll regret it," said Zubov.

"The snakes will regret it if I don't," I said.

"Ferraci, stop him."

Ferraci ignored Zubov. Callie was crying. Her chest was shuddering. A dark spot was spreading between her legs.

"Callie peed her pants," said Zubov. "That's what you get for wearing pants, Callie. If you wear a dress like other girls, nobody notices when you can't hold it."

I went outside with the snakes.

"Wait a minute," said Zubov. "Come back here."

I let the snakes go in the bushes along the side of the parking lot. Zubov was about a hundred yards behind me. He caught up and grabbed me by the front of my shirt. He didn't have time to beat me up. So he lifted his knee up hard between my legs. Then he went to catch his pets. He had a cage with him. Father Olszewski appeared at the back door of the church.

"Brian," he said. "It's almost time."

I couldn't walk straight.

"Is something the matter?" asked Father Olszewski.

"I have a pain," I said. "I don't think I can serve Mass today." We were walking into the sacristy.

"Then Callie will have to go it alone." We found Callie still crying by the closets. "Why Callie," said Father Olszewski, "what's the matter?"

"She wet her pants," said Ferraci. "Sorry," he said to me. "I can't always control him." He meant Zubov.

"Don't give me that," I said. "You came early so you could watch."

Father Olszewski didn't know what we were talking about.

"No, really," said Ferraci. "I tried to stop him."

Father Olszewski was embarrassed. "You'd better both go home, then. It's a lucky thing that these other boys came early." He had seen Zubov outside, I suppose. "They'll have to fill in for you."

Outside I said to Callie, "I don't think I can ride my bike."

"Why not?" she said. She wasn't crying any more. Every once in a while she gave another snort or made an ugly sound by drawing air in through her nose.

"I had a little accident," I said. "You go ahead. Get yourself a dry pair of pants."

"Don't rub it in," she said.

"I'm not."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Neither do I."

She rode her bike to her house, and I walked my bike home. I made better progress than I would have without the bike to lean on. It made me think of how my grandma sometimes has to use a cane.

The pain lasted a few days.

Mr. Kemp was home and agreed to let me come over and use his equipment at five. The phone patch worked. I sat in Mr. Kemp's radio shack and talked to my mother. "Your father escaped," she told me. My parents didn't like the guided tour. Government agents took them everywhere. They had no chance to visit our relatives. Because of a recent assassination, tourists were searched for weapons every time they entered or left the hotel.

The government agents wore white shirts and dark pants. They carried guns. Now my father was missing. My mother assumed that he had snuck out to visit relatives. She didn't know anything about an autogyro. She couldn't even remember the word. "I still don't understand you," she said. "Your father gave you the watchamacallit and you want permission to use it?"

"Aunt Speed wants me to wait till you come home."

"That settles it. You do whatever Aunt Speed says."

She didn't know when dad would get back. She was already worried. She kept mentioning those government agents with their guns.

Aunt Speed had come to the Kemps' house with me. She got all excited to hear the voice from Ireland. I showed her how to work the microphone, and she talked for a few minutes about the weather.

On the walk home, she started talking about the Trouble. She meant the war they had in Ireland when she was young. The Irish were fighting to kick out the British. "When I was a girl," she said--she had a weird way of saying girl. It sounded like "geddle". "When I was a geddle, we used to hide the boys on the run." The boys on the run were the Irish guerrilla fighters hiding out from the British Empire. Aunt Speed used to be a lookout who had to run and tell the family if she saw any soldiers coming, so that the family could hide the boys on the run.


CHAPTER NINETEEN

Callie wanted me to come over to her house. For a couple of days I refused. I could tell she wanted to make sure we were still friends.

The third day I was feeling better. I went over to Callie's house.

"Look at this," she said. "Software. It can teach you code through the computer."

"I already know the code," I said. I sounded nasty even to myself. I tried to think of something friendly to say. "Have you been practicing your code?" I asked.

"No. I don't have to."

"If you want to get your license--"

"I don't need it," she said. "I can communicate with other computers all over the country. I'll show you." She dialed a number and put the telephone receiver down in the cradle of her modem. Pretty soon she was typing. Words from other people came on the screen, and Callie answered through her own keyboard. Most of the people wanted to talk about computers.

"So what good is the code thing you were showing me?"

"I got it for you."

"I already know the code."

"Oh, that's not all it does. You can use it to send and receive code through the computer keyboard. Type in any message. Then let the computer listen to the answer and translate it into letters on the television screen."

"Takes all the fun out of it," I said.

"Not for me," said Callie.

"How can you afford to buy so much stuff? According to what I've read, computer time costs money. So does software."

"I have my ways," said Callie mysteriously.

Callie wanted to talk to other computer fanatics, and she wanted me to sit there and admire her. Instead I decided to go to the public library. I rode my bike down past the old elementary school, where they've moved out all the houses to make room for a new freeway. I was taking a short cut through the city's recreation center--skating rink and pool--when Thomas Zubov stepped out in front of my bike. I had to hit my brakes to avoid hitting him. He was wearing wet swim trunks and twisting a damp towel.

"Hey Brian," he said. "How's your girl friend?"

"Would you mind moving out of my way?"

"You probably got more than one," he said. "I mean your favorite girl friend. You know--what's her name. The one that's afraid of snakes."

"What's your problem, Zubov?"

"Callie! That's her name. Little Callie." He started snapping the damp towel at my face. He started singing:

"Brian and Callie up in a tree

K - I - S - S - I - N - G.

First comes love and then comes marriage.

Then comes Brian in a baby carriage." He snapped the towel again. "Get it? Brian junior. Baby Brian. But you and Callie have to get married first. Otherwise it would be a scandal."

"If you don't mind," I said.

The towel stung me on the corner of my left eye.

"I don't mind," he said.

The next time he flicked the towel at me, I grabbed it and snapped it away from him. He tried to take it back, but my handlebars and the front wheel got in the way. I tied it in a knot and threw it over the fence. It landed in the shallow end of the pool.

Zubov came around the bike and grabbed the front of my shirt.

My brother Timo had been studying ju-jitsu at the YMCA for years. I never took any lessons, but sometimes Timo would show me a wrist lock or nerve pinch or maybe a simple strangle hold. It was easy for me to put my right hand palm down over the back of Zubov's right hand, my thumb against the base of his, and turn his hand over. I didn't even have to remove it from my shirt. Once I had it turned over, I brought my left hand up and held his right wrist. He straightened his arm in an attempt to resist. His right elbow had been turned up when I turned his hand over. I leaned my left elbow on it and lowered the weight of my body against the joint. He couldn't do anything about it. The pressure on his right arm kept him from hitting me with his left. He was down on his left knee and had his free hand palm-down on the asphalt to keep his balance.

All this happened in a moment.

"Ow," he said. "That hurts."

Now I had a problem. If I let go of him, he might decide to get back at me. But I couldn't squat there all day. Timo never mentioned what you were supposed to do once you subdued an attacker.

"Brian!" said Zubov. "I'm warning you."

"A little bit of leverage," I said. "A demonstration of the laws of physics."

"Let me go."

He lurched in an attempt to break free, and immediately yelped with pain.

"Settle down," I said. "You can hurt yourself that way."

"I'll get you for this," he said.

"What an original remark. Why don't you look on it as an educational experience?"

A life guard came out. "O.K., kids," he said. "Break it up."

I let Zubov go. I started to ride away. "Wait a minute," said the life guard. But I kept on going.

In the library I read an encyclopedia article on swine. It didn't say anything about the ethics of eating pigmeat. It did say that you could get a disease called trichinosis from eating rare pork. I filed this fact away for future reference. I could use it next time my mother wanted me to eat ham.


CHAPTER TWENTY

When my parents at last flew home, Aunt Speed and I drove to the airport to pick them up. I like the airport. It has two levels. Downstairs you can take a tunnel to the Rapid Transit. If you don't have a driver's license, you can go to the airport by yourself. Rich kids running away from home probably use it all the time. Upstairs a couple of football fields would fit inside the open space.

We parked the car quite a distance from the terminal, but we didn't have to walk. The airport has a moving sidewalk, a conveyor belt that carries people under ground and delivers them to the basement of the main building, near the tunnel to the Rapid Transit.

Aunt Speed checked one of the television screens. My parents' aircraft was on time. I read once that pilots never call an aircraft a plane. She said: "We'd better get a move on or we won't have time for shopping."

We went up an escalator to the big open space. Near the escalator I saw a car on a turntable--a full-size car going around slowly on a giant record player. A sign said: "The Car of the Future." But it looked like an Italian sports car.

All around the open space I could see little shops. A lot of them sold junk for tourists. A state store sold liquor. A couple of stores sold women's clothes, and Aunt Speed went straight for one of these. She started looking at underwear. It was embarrassing. "I'll meet you outside," I said.

"Don't go far," she said.

In the clear space I noticed a vending machine.

FLIGHT INSURANCE

Protect your loved ones from the unforseen.

$2500 for 25 cents * $5000 for 50 cents

$10,000 for $1 * $50,000 for $5

$50,000 for $5 * $100,000 for $10

$250,000 for $25 * $500,000 for $50

It seemed like a pretty good deal. I didn't know how they could make a deal like that, but I wanted to get in on it. I expected to be doing some flying soon. I bought $2500 for 25 cents and started to think about what I could do with the money. I could put an engine on my autogyro. Powered flight! If I had a gas tank with a 200-mile range, say with a bit of a tailwind, I could visit my grandmother on one tank of gas. Even without a tailwind, I could land somewhere and fill it up with regular. The mechanic's eyes would pop when I rolled up to the pump in my private aircraft. He'd probably ask me questions. Made it myself. Right. Oh, about 150 miles an hour. Usually keep it down to 100. Saves gas and makes the trip longer. I enjoy every minute up in the air. Then he'd watch me take off and probably think about it all day.

The computer screen on the vending machine was blinking at me. Name beneficiary. I read the small print. Of course, I must have known how life insurance works. I was just thinking about the pay-off, not about the conditions. They wouldn't pay unless I died. Then my beneficiary would get the money. I typed in the name Timothy O'Brien. He could build himself a darkroom. Maybe I should make a will and leave him my autogyro. Then he could take aerial photographs of the cemetery and hang an enlargement on the wall of our room.

The screen was still blinking. I had to type in my name, my relationship to Timo, my address, and his address. The machine wanted to know if he went by any other name. I typed in Timo. The screen kept asking more questions: Timo's business address, the phone number at his business, acquaintances who might know his whereabouts if he has moved, his minister or rabbi, his lawyer, his doctor. Every answer led to another question.

I finished reading the small print. I wanted to find out how much longer it would take. I discovered that the insurance was only good for a single flight on a commercial airline. And since I wasn't flying anywhere on a commercial airline, it was no good at all to me. I typed in Forget it and left the screen blinking behind me.

Aunt Speed was just coming out of the clothing shop. "We have to hurry," she said. But her idea of a sprint corresponds to my idea of a brisk dawdle. Luckily the plane wasn't really on time. I mean the aircraft.

The terminal must look like a modernistic octopus from the air. It has eight legs, corridors that run from the central open space to the small waiting rooms where people board the aircraft. I had a chance to watch some jets take off. I put a little money in the coin-operated binoculars to get a closer look. The ones I watched seem to go along the ground for a long time and then suddenly point up at a steep angle and leap into the sky. I don't know why they don't take off gradually, the way older aircraft with propellers do.

My parents finally did arrive. My mother squeezed the breath out of me, and my father almost broke my fingers shaking my hand. I wanted to ask about the autogyro right away, but they wouldn't let me get a word in. Finally I gave up for the time being and let them wind down.


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