TIMO
1
When I first learned how to write, I carved my name in the woodwork of my bedroom closet: TIM O. My mother got mad. My father got mad. My brother Brian made fun of me. They told me that those letters would never come off. Of course they would never come off! I had done an excellent job of carving. My brother Brian started calling me Timo. Pretty soon everyone called me Timo, even people who had never visited my bedroom closet. I liked the name. I nearly always use it when I introduce myself.
If you've heard my brother Brian's version of our lives, you know he doesn't have much imagination. You shouldn't hold it against him, though. He doesn't even know why he lacks certain human qualities, such as a sense of humor. He belongs to a superhuman race I call the wisedomes.
Soon after I started to go to the same school as Brian, one of the wisedomes came to see me. Brian was a year ahead of me at that time, but I skipped a grade and now we're in the same class. The wisedomes arranged it. They wanted me to keep an eye on Brian.
It happened at night. Brian had already fallen asleep. We share a room in the attic of our house. First I saw the shadows on the wall. Then I could make out solid bodies: little dogs. But as they came closer, I could see their shapes more clearly: foxes, three of them. One fox sat at the foot of my bed on top of a folded blanket. It was early in the school year, still as hot as summer, so I didn't need any extra covers. Another fox jumped up and sat on my chest. The third started circling the way my dog Meeko does before he takes a nap on the oval rug in the back hall. But instead of settling down, the fox went faster and faster. It turned into a blur, then into a small tornado. The tornado grew taller. Then it stopped whirling. Instead of a fox, a little man with a bald balloon of a skull stood by my bed. He had fox-red fur all over his body--everywhere except the top half of his head. He spoke.
"You Tim O'Brien?"
I tried to answer.
Once I entered a whistling contest. The judges made me eat a whole stack of saltines first. Then I was supposed to whistle. Most people can't whistle with a mouth dried out by crackers. I felt the same way that night--dry mouth, no sound coming out no matter how I tried.
The wisedome spoke again. "The one they call Timo?"
I nodded.
"O.K.," he said to the fox on my chest. "He seems to be cooperating. You can let him sit up now."
The fox went to sit next to the other one on the folded blanket.
"Don't worry," said the wisedome. "We won't hurt you. We don't believe in violence." The wisedome had a crackly tenor voice.
I swallowed.
"Now Timo," said the wisedome, "I have a story to tell you. Just relax." The wisedome told me where my brother Brian came from and why he was living among us.
"Millions of years ago, my people evolved from animals very much like the fox. We became so advanced that we hated violence. Though we developed techniques far more effective than anything known to humans, we became so ethical that we hardly ever used these techniques except in training. Instead, if any creature attacked us, we would run away.
"You have probably noticed that it takes longer for humans to grow up than for most creatures. It takes one of our younglings an even longer time to grow up. In fact, an adolescent of our species may have a hundred years of experience before passing into the adult stage. Since all our adults hate violence, we have a problem. How can we protect our younglings during their defenseless years?
"Thousands of years ago, our elders had to come up with an answer. Humans had always threatened our lives with their violent ways. But a new threat bothered us more. Aliens from another galaxy came to study our planet. They knew that they could ignore most of the forms of life on the planet. Dolphins and whales, though more intelligent than humans, did not bother these aliens, who had no intention of living in the ocean. Humans, with their feeble brains and pitiful bodies, could not hope to defend their land. Only one thing kept the aliens from taking over. They learned of our existence.
"They didn't understand our hatred of violence. They only knew that a clever race like ours would always remain a threat. And, I admit, we would have given them some trouble--the same way we used to give your ancestors trouble in Ireland. Little pranks. Sabotage. Mischief. Call it what you will.
"We did the same everywhere. In Ireland they called us the small people. In England they called us the fairies. In Japan they called us the foxes. Everywhere we lived we did what we could to keep the humans from getting out of hand. We also tried to educate you whenever possible.
"Now we had a real problem. The aliens were hoping to wipe us out."
I wanted to ask what the aliens looked like. As soon as the question occurred to me, the wisedome said: "The aliens look exactly like bugbears. So I might as well call them bugbears, to make it easier for you." But how does a bugbear look? The wisedome didn't say. The story continued.
"Remember, all this happened thousands of years ago. The bugbears hunted us down whenever they could. But even ordinary foxes know how to hide. And we were not ordinary foxes.
"Our elders developed a plan. In the earliest stage, our younglings look like mice. All right, said the scientists, let them hide among the mice. In the second stage, our younglings look like rats. Very well, said the geniuses, let them hide among the rats. In the third stage, our younglings look like humans. Fourth-stagers look like alligators. And who will defend our younglings when the bugbears come? The mice, the rats, the humans, and the alligators.
"And so it came to pass that your parents heard a baby crying in the sewer in the front of your house. Your father lifted the manhole cover and looked down. He and your mother saw a family of puzzled rats staring at what looked like a human baby.
"They called him Brian."
I looked over at my brother Brian, only a second-grader at that time. He never woke up. In fact, he's almost always sleeping when the wisedomes arrive. Sometimes they come early, and I see their shadows on the wall. "Brian," I say. "Look!"
"What?"
"Look at the foxes!"
"There's nothing there," he says. Of course he doesn't bother to look.
I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up the next morning, the wisedome was gone. But the folded blanket had two small hollows where the foxes had rested.
By the time I finished my breakfast, I considered the whole thing a dream. "Mommy," I said as I looked at my orange juice, "what's a bugbear?" I was only in the first grade, and in those days I called my mother mommy.
"Sort of a monster. Drink your orange juice."
I didn't like orange juice. "What's it look like?"
"I don't know. Scary, I guess. Why don't you look it up in the dictionary?"
I knocked over my orange juice. "Whoops!" I said.
"Oh Timo! What am I going to do with you?"
I learned to read and write at age four. By the time I got to kindergarten, I had finished all the fairy-tale books in the house. In first grade it became obvious to the teacher that I already knew everything. When the wisedomes came back that night, they told me that they were moving me up to the second grade, so that I could keep an eye on Brian.
"You see, even in the third stage our younglings have little sense. Only in the fourth stage, when they take the form of alligators, do they begin to develop imagination. Brian probably can't even see bugbears, much less defend himself against their hypnotic powers."
Sure enough, a few days later the teacher and the principal gave me a test. Then they placed me in the second grade.
2
Every night after that, the wisedomes came to visit. What time would they come? We used to have this old cuckoo clock downstairs. When it started up at night and I was trying to fall asleep, I would automatically count the number of cuckoos I would get to nine at least, sometimes to ten or even eleven. I seldom made it all the way to twelve.
The wisedomes would arrive on the stroke of thirteen.
At breakfast once I asked my mother, "What time is it when the clock strikes thirteen?"
But she said: "Don't be silly. Drink your orange juice."
I know better now. No such thing as 13 o'clock. Of course not. I must have counted wrong.
"Do you have a name?" I asked the fox that turned through a tornado into a dwarf.
"You couldn't pronounce it," he said.
"Well what should I call you?"
"How about Wolfgang?" he said. "I've always admired the name Wolfgang."
Wolfgang told me I had to start training. I was only a kid, so I accepted orders without questioning them much. From then on I spent every night either hooked up to Wolfgang's magnetic learning machine or out on some kind of field trip. It always took hours and hours, but at the end of the session I would hear the clock strike one. I would fall asleep. In those early years, I never saw Wolfgang or the foxes go away. I was always asleep by the time they left.
Wolfgang's magnetic learning machine looked like half a watermelon attached by wires to a pocket radio. He put the watermelon like a helmet on my head and fiddled with the dials on the radio. Whatever I learned in school that day disappeared from my brain.
"What's the idea?" I said.
"Can't have your head all cluttered up with knowledge."
"I studied hard to learn that stuff!"
"Haven't you heard the old saying? The wise learn to unlearn their learning."
I never did hear this old saying, but I wouldn't admit it.
"An empty blackboard gathers the most chalk," said Wolfgang.
Don't ask me to explain it. Wolfgang's so-called magnetic learning machine actually erased knowledge. And I had to suffer for it. The day after my first treatment, the teacher asked me a question.
"I don't know," I said truthfully. I hate the way some kids try to fake it when they don't know the answer.
"Why don't you know?" My second-grade teacher wore a lot of makeup and lipstick. Brian was in love with her, but she was engaged to her boyfriend. "Didn't you do your homework?"
"Yes, I did." I couldn't very well explain it to her.
"Then why don't you know?"
"I guess I forgot."
The teacher called on Brian next, and he had the right answer.
The field trips were a lot of fun, though. After we got Meeko, Wolfgang and the foxes let me bring him along. Meeko is a West Highland White Terrier. Brian calls him a white scotty dog. Wolfgang and the two foxes and Meeko and I would visit all kinds of places. Once we went to Niagara Falls, the Canadian side. Meeko barked at the water and almost fell over the edge. Then we went to one of the wax museums they have there. My family went there recently in the daytime. When my sister saw Dracula, she got so scared that my father had to take her outside. You can imagine what it was like at night with no one but us there.
"You wondered what a bugbear looks like?" said Wolfgang. "Follow me."
The lights were dim. Wolfgang led us around the corner past Jack the Ripper and down a flight of stairs near Frankenstein. We left the werewolf display behind us and turned another corner. "Here you go," said Wolfgang.
The sign said: The Abominable Snowman, also known as Saskwatch, and sometimes called Bigfoot. I read the small print. This shy humanoid giant lives peacefully in the mountainous regions of the earth eating only vegetables and occasionally small mammals such as foxes.
"Hah," said Wolfgang. "That's a laugh."
The foxes were obviously nervous in the presence of the realistic wax figure. It stood about eight feet tall, had grisly hair all over its body, a gorilla face with glass eyes and round ears, and of course extremely big feet.
"Don't be silly," said Wolfgang to the foxes. "It's only wax."
Meeko started quivering.
Then we heard footsteps. By the sound of them, I could tell they belonged to something pretty big. They came closer, closer. We were trapped in a little nook, a dead end.
A light hit me straight in the eyes and made me blink. "Cheese," said a voice. "It's a little kid."
Meeko growled.
"You better control your dog, kid."
"Who are you?" I asked.
"The night watchman," he said. "Who are you?"
"I'm an American citizen," I said, "so you better not try anything."
Maybe you wonder how we got to Canada in the first place. Wolfgang called it "a simple matter of instantaneous teleportation." He and the foxes did it by running around in a circle with me and Meeko in the middle. Once they got up to tornado speed, I'd find myself feeling a little dizzy. I'd close my eyes. Then I'd feel all right and open them again. But my room would be gone. I'd be someplace else.
I picked up Meeko so the watchman wouldn't hit him with his flashlight or something. Then I noticed movement at my feet. Three foxes were running in circles around me.
"What the devil!" said the watchman.
But that's the last I heard of him. After a dizzy moment I heard Brian snoring. We were back in the attic of my house.
The next day in school, I kept nodding off.
"Timo!" I heard the teacher say. "I asked you a question." She was married by that time, and Brian was heartbroken.
"Sorry, ma'am," I said. "I guess I didn't hear you."
"Brian," she said. "Do you know the answer?"
Brian knew the answer, all right. If you don't use a magnetic learning machine, and if you never go to Niagara Falls in the middle of the night, it's not hard at all to remember the answer.
Another time we went to the wilderness somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Wolfgang wanted me to learn how to build a fire without using matches. I never did get the hang of it. He showed me how to turn over rocks and to find grubs. He put a fat white grub in his mouth. "Mmmmmm," he said. "Good eating. You try some."
"No thanks."
"Delicious," said Wolfgang. "What if you get stranded in the wilderness with nothing to eat?"
"I'll go fishing," I said.
"Not enough fat in fish to keep you alive. Take my word for it. Go for the grubs." He popped another handful in his mouth.
Meeko was running all over the place, snuffling in the leaves, lifting his leg on every tree-trunk. He stopped moving.
"Looks as if he found something," said Wolfgang.
I was shivering in the cold air. Wolfgang and the foxes only got cold when they were sitting around doing nothing. When autumn came their coats thickened.
Meeko barked.
"A footprint," said Wolfgang. "A whole trail of them. Too big to be human."
The foxes were shivering and sniffing the air.
"Do you smell it, Timo? That sour odor? Remember it. An alien was here. And not too long ago, either."
"Maybe we'd better be heading back," I said.
"Bugbear moves at a pretty good clip," said Wolfgang. "Don't make the mistake of trying to outrun him."
"I'm kind of chilly," I said.
"He's so quick, in fact, that he can stop a fox before it can whirl fast enough to escape. That's why we have to be careful even after we've mastered the art of instantaneous teleportation."
"Very interesting," I said.
The next day I didn't have to worry about school. I had a fever of a hundred and three.
3
In the third grade, I started ju-jitsu lessons at the YMCA. Wolfgang told me to. "Ju-jitsu for self-defense," he said. "Swimming to build strength and endurance. And ping-pong to improve your reflexes. Don't bother with football, baseball, shuffleboard, or basketball. Billiards, O.K.. Eight-ball, O.K.."
If you get the impression that Wolfgang was running my life, you have the right idea. I said: "Maybe you'd like to tell me how much water to drink every day?"
"Thirty-two ounces," he said. He didn't even notice the sarcasm.
I quickly became an expert at all the skills Wolfgang suggested. By the fifth grade, I could play a good game of pool. I won the winter ping-pong tournament at the Y. I had passed through the stages of the YMCA swimming program--minnow to fish to flying fish to shark--and had an I.D. card describing me as a dolphin. And I won my junior black belt in ju-jitsu.
Brian was in love with this girl in our class, Callie Clemson. A friend of mine named Thomas Zubov also liked her. Brian got into a fight with Zubov. I had given Brian a few pointers, and I wanted to see how well he could do, in case we ever had to face a gang of bugbears together. I was ready to step in and stop the fight if necessary. But Brian did all right. I learned from this experience that I could probably trust him to do his part in a tough situation.
Brian got interested in helicopters. I remember a conversation we had last Christmas Eve. You have to remember that we're not second graders any more. We're almost adults. I said: "Imagine how you'd feel if dad got you a helicopter for Christmas."
Brian said: "You mean I'm getting a helicopter? How do you know? Did you see it?"
You can tell he's not too swift on the uptake. It's almost impossible to avoid kidding a kid like that. He practically begged me to pull his leg.
"Sure," I said. "He's got it hidden away in the attic of the garage. An economy-size Army helicopter."
"What color?"
"Olive drab."
"Come on! Dad couldn't afford something like that!"
"He bought it with a credit card at the Army Surplus Store. Since we don't have any wars going on at the moment, the Army had to unload its extra helicopters at a real discount."
"A bargain?"
"Right."
"I don't believe you."
But he did believe me. I know because the next day he got mad at me when he didn't find a helicopter in his stocking. He spent the whole day sulking in the tree house.
At thirteen o'clock on Christmas night, Wolfgang and the two foxes appeared as usual. Wolfgang was wearing a flannel nightcap to keep his dome from catching cold. I think I can guess where legends of elves come from. People must catch accidental glimpses of the wisedomes all the time. Ever since I met Wolfgang, I've been noticing how often I see a few wisedomes or foxes out of the corner of my eye. Once when Meeko seemed to be looking at blank air, I tried an experiment. I looked away from the spot he was observing, not at it. Out of the corner of my eye, sure enough, I caught a glimpse of a couple of wisedomes watching me. Dogs can see them straight ahead, even in daylight, I guess. But not humans in America. I'm not so sure about humans in Ireland.
That Christmas night I asked Wolfgang when Brian would grow some brains.
"Not for quite a while, I'm afraid. But that should make you feel needed. Without your help, what will Brian do if the bugbears attack?"
He had a point. Brian would believe any story the bugbears cooked up.
"Tonight," said Wolfgang, "I have a special lesson for you. I'm going to show you a movie of a bugbear, and teach you a little about the hypnotic powers of these alien infiltrators."
So we went downtown to this theater. I happen to know that there are no all-night movie houses in our city. This particular theater has showings at twelve, one, three, five, seven, and nine. Nothing at thirteen-thirty. I checked the ads in the newspapers. Yet the theater was playing a movie called Bigfoot: The Eyewitness Proof. We were alone. The two foxes sat on the backs of the seats on either side of me and Wolfgang. The film was excellent. This television personality, I forget his name, told the story. A lot of people had seen Bigfoot, and even more people had observed his footprints. One guy even had a pair of specially made boots that he used to simulate bugbear footprints. But in spite of this hoax, the facts seemed to prove the existence of the Abominable Snowman.
When the television personality called Bigfoot a shy vegetarian, Wolfgang snorted. At the very end of the film came the part he wanted me to see. The foxes were whimpering when it came on: a thirty-second home movie of a bugbear climbing a slope and disappearing among the trees. It looked exactly like the giant upright ape in the wax museum. The television personality emphasized its acrid stench.
When the film ended, the lights came on. "Now for a short course in bugbear hypnotism," said Wolfgang. "We might as well do it here." He walked up to the stage in front of the screen. The two foxes followed him. I stood up too, but Wolfgang said, "No, Timo. Stay down there and observe."
He spun his body until it blurred, his usual method of turning back into a fox. Then he and the other two foxes ran in a circle and vanished.
I heard heavy footsteps behind me. I noticed an acrid stench. I turned in my seat. Something big came slowly out of the shadows. A bugbear! It stopped next to my row of seats. I looked into its eyes. I wanted to run, but I couldn't even stand up.
"Have you ever wondered," it said in a scratchy whisper, "how it would feel if every voluntary muscle of your body were paralyzed? Now you know. You can't move. You want to run away, but you can't lift a leg, can't get your arms to work, can't even turn your head away."
I struggled against its hypnotic power, but everything it said was true.
"I can gather you up like a stump of firewood. I can drop you into my cast-iron stove. You might as well do something worthwhile with your life. This time of year it gets a bit chilly. I can use the extra fuel."
This part sounded a little suspicious to me. Recently Wolfgang had become obsessed with wood-burning stoves. My parents got one for our family room. He wasted night after night sitting in front of the fire, telling me about how the winters around here get into his bones, and pretending to teach me why an American citizen should burn wood instead of oil.
"Wolfgang?" I said. "Is that you?"
"Your vocal cords are paralyzed," it said. "You cannot so much as whimper."
"Come off it," I said.
"Well, you can see how it works, anyway," said the bugbear in Wolfgang's normal voice.
"How what works?"
"Hypnotism. Power of suggestion. If I'd been a real bugbear, I'd be walking out the door with you under my arm."
I had to admit that he was probably right. "So what am I supposed to do about it?"
"Just don't panic. Remember, it's a scientific fact that nobody every hypnotized a smart-mouth. If you can keep making wisecracks, their hypnotic suggestions will have no power over you."
"What about Brian?"
"You know the answer to that."
I did know the answer. Brian couldn't make a decent wisecrack to save his life. And he was so gullible he'd believe anything the bugbears wanted him to believe. If they told him he couldn't move, he'd take their word for it. They'd scoop him up and I'd never see him again.
4
When we made it back to my house, Wolfgang wanted to build a fire in the stove and sit in the family room.
"Have I ever explained to you," he asked, "why wood is more patriotic than oil?"
"Only a thousand times or so."
"Good. We learn by repetition. You see, Timo, the country can grow more trees all the time. Unless it doesn't bother. But it takes millions of years to replace oil. Once you burn it, you can't get more. The same thing goes for coal."
"Not to mention gasoline and petroleum jelly."
"Right. You know quite a bit about it."
"I've heard it often enough."
"Time for another treatment on the old magnetic learning machine."
"Great."
"You can never have too much magnetic learning."
And he proceeded to wipe out all the facts I'd studied since the last treatment. I wasn't going to school, of course. We get time off for Christmas and New Year. But I had probably learned a few things anyhow. Of course, he never wiped out anything he considered important. I still knew about the hypnotic powers of the bugbears. I could still tell the difference between wood and oil.
"Have I ever mentioned solar power?" said Wolfgang. "Even better than wood." He had, as a matter of fact, mentioned it more than once.
After solar power, he started telling me about windmills. I had already heard why windmills are less dangerous than nuclear power plants. But, as Wolfgang says, we learn by repetition. And Wolfgang was a wisedome of his word. His principles and his actions always stuck together.
When he finished with the windmills, Wolfgang told me something new. "Starting tomorrow," he said, "I expect you to resist the hypnotic powers of the bugbears whenever they appear in your daily life."
"What are you talking about?"
"Wisecracks," he said. "I thought you understood."
"Yes," I said. "But I never meet any bugbears in my daily life."
"Really, Timo," he said. "I'm disappointed in you. Don't you watch television?"
"Of course."
"Don't you watch commercials?"
"Sometimes." Sometimes I look inside the refrigerator instead, or else go to the bathroom.
"And you mean to tell me you haven't observed the hypnotic influence of the bugbears?"
"In the shows or in the commercials?"
"Both."
"I guess I never thought about it."
"The power of suggestion, Timo! That's how the aliens work. They take over your mind with the power of suggestion."
"Brian watches T.V. all the time," I said.
"You must always accompany him," said Wolfgang. "Encourage him to take up other hobbies. If he insists on watching television, make at least sixteen wisecracks per show, and at least one wisecrack per commercial."
"I'll try," I said.
"His future may depend on it."
I had a lot of time to watch television that week. The networks must have known that kids didn't have school, but during the day they played the same boring soap operas and game shows anyhow. Brian didn't watch any of them, and I couldn't stand very many either. I don't understand what soap operas are suggesting. Maybe they convince people that sex is incredibly dull, so that the human race will give up on it and die out. The game shows suggest that no matter how much money people win or lose, they keep on acting like clowns on a coffee break. The news comes on and suggests that, after a life of dull sex and clowning, we can look forward to a nice flood or earthquake or plane crash to put us out of our misery.
I had an easier time figuring out the commercials. I watched Brian listen to the first few notes of an iced-tea commercial, rise from his chair like a zombie coming out of the grave, walk to the refrigerator, pour himself some iced tea, drink it down, pour himself more, and return to his seat. He did it all in a trance.
"Pretty effective commercial," I said.
"What?"
"That last commercial," I said.
"Oh," he said. "What was it? I wasn't paying any attention."
They worked on me too. A cheeseburger commercial made me hungry. A deodorant commercial made me self-conscious. And did you ever notice how the dogfood commercials work? They make the food appealing to humans. Dogs don't care if they can cut their food with a knife and fork. At least Meeko never uses silverware. But dogs don't buy the stuff. People do.
I tried to figure out why the bugbears would want to use their hypnotic powers in this way. All the commercials had the same message: you're unhappy. You're unhappy, but we have the answer. Drink iced tea. Nineteen million zombies go to the refrigerator and get back in time to hear the next one. You're unhappy, but we have the answer. Eat a cheeseburger. The zombies zoom out to their fast-food restaurants for cheeseburgers. They get back in time to see that they're unhappy because they're so ugly compared to movie stars, and so clumsy compared to stuntmen. But the next commercial has the answer. Use more deodorant! The zombies notice that they do smell a lot like humans. Can't have anyone smelling like a human! Everybody has to smell like an aerosol spray. Wolfgang says aerosol destroys the ozone layer in the atmosphere. Without that ozone, humans simply can't live on this planet.
No matter how often the zombies respond to hypnotic suggestion, more suggestions wait for them. They can't keep up. They try and try, but finally believe that they'll never be happy. They get older in the process, and the commercials tell them they can't be happy unless they're young. Use more makeup! They get fat, and the shows tell them only thin people are worth anything. Go on a diet! Finally "you're unhappy" also means "you're no good." And that's exactly what the bugbears want us to believe.
I'm going a little too fast here. Actually, I didn't figure this all out by myself. I talked it over with Wolfgang.
"That's exactly what the bugbears want you to believe," he said.
"But why?"
"Because then you won't have any fight left in you. Then you'll despair. You'll say, for example, Who cares about the nuclear bomb? And some day, blooie. You'll say, It's hopeless. Morale, see? They destroy your morale, and then they have you where they want you."
I still wasn't convinced. The power of suggestion didn't seem very solid compared to a tank or a submarine.
But when I said so, Wolfgang answered: "Why do the leaders of the world think they need more and more tanks and submarines? They follow the same philosophy that you saw on television. More. More. More. You're not satisfied yet. You need more. The tanks and submarines exist because the zombies want them. And the zombies want them because of the power of suggestion."
He was beginning to make sense to me. It sounded exactly like the things my father and uncle say when they sit out on the lawn in the summertime after dark and talk about television and politics. They drink beer. Sometimes they give me a sip. They drink a brand that isn't advertised on T.V..
My uncle always makes wisecracks when the television's on. He's a television repairman, but he doesn't even have a television in his house. Thinking about him, I remembered something.
"Wolfgang?"
"Did I ever tell you about the ozone layer?"
"I have a question. How am I supposed to think of enough wisecracks?"
"You never had trouble before."
True, I never had trouble before. But as soon as I knew I was supposed to make wisecracks, I couldn't think of any.
I kept talking whenever Brian wanted to watch television. But I couldn't think of anything devastating to say. Instead of winning him over, I just got him mad. And he was already mad. He still held it against me that I told him he was getting a helicopter for Christmas.
"Shut up, Timo."
"You shut up." You can see I wasn't exactly witty.
"Mom! Timo won't shut up."
"If you boys don't settle down, you can turn off the television and go to bed early."
"O.K. by me," I said.
"Shut up, will you? I'm trying to watch this."
Maybe it isn't crucial for me to make wisecracks to save Brian from the television. He's been watching it for years, and he still doesn't use a deodorant.
But what am I going to do if I come face to face with a bugbear and can't think of a single thing to say?
"Don't worry," said Wolfgang. "They don't always rely on the power of suggestion."
"Oh?" I said.
"Sometimes they use brute force."
First Section of Brian's Story.