“Yes, I did.” I raise my arms in a triumphant V, like I just crossed a finish line.

“Well done. Let’s see if we can have more days like this.” She holds up one hand, fingers crossed, while the other hand marks her place in one of the books. “By the way, a package came for you. I left it on the island in the kitchen. What did you order?”

“Just stuff for school.” I’m hoping she’ll take this as evidence that I’m a new and improved Jack, lesson learned.

Her phone rings, and she shakes her head. “Go ahead and get pizza or something for dinner, unless your dad can throw something together.”

“I don’t think he’s home yet.”

Her face goes blank, and before she can say anything and because she works hard and he’s a louse, and because she doesn’t deserve to feel bad about anything, I jog around the desk and kiss her on the cheek. “You’re welcome to all this swag, Mom. I’ve got so much to spare. Here’s a little more to help you with your case.” And I hug her. It’s not much, but it makes her laugh, even as she’s pushing me away.

I open the box in my room. Two titles by Oliver Sacks, a textbookish volume on visual perception called Face and Mind, and a biography of prosopagnosic painter Chuck Close, who’s made a name for himself painting faces and is a total badass. He’s in a wheelchair, with a messed-up hand, and he’s face-blind, but he creates these paintings that are really damn awesome. This is how he does it:

He photographs the face.

He maps the face by making a photographic grid of it.

He then builds the face piece by piece on canvas, using oils, acrylics, ink, graphite, or colored pencils.

According to him, it’s always about the face.

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Only about the face.

Because the face is a road map of life.

I text Jayvee. Our conversation begins, as always, with Atticus Finch.

Me: Let’s say Atticus Finch is your father.

Jayvee: Am I Scout or Jem?

Me: Either. Or Jayvee. Jayvee Finch.

Jayvee: Of the Filipino Finches. Continue.

Me: Let’s say there’s an illness that runs in the family, and when you were little, Atticus decided you shouldn’t be tested for it.

Jayvee: Atticus is usually right. Is there a cure?

Me: Not really.

Jayvee: Am I questioning Atticus now that I’m all grown up and womanly?

Me: Maybe.

Jayvee: How old am I now?

Me: Our age.

Jayvee: I’d assume old Atticus had his reasons. He’s Atticus Finch, after all.

Five seconds later:

Jayvee: But there’s something to be said for making your own decisions.

How to Build a Robot

by Jack Masselin

Collect as many Lego pieces and other materials as possible.

Draw up schematic of design.

Ignore “how to build a Lego robot” websites because this is for Dusty and he deserves something original that has never been created before.

Rewatch The Day the Earth Stood Still (the original, not the remake) for procrastination-designed-as-inspiration-gathering purposes.

Take everything you can find of any value from the scrap yard.

Order missing parts (if impossible to find at scrap yard)—microcontroller, breadboard, circuit board, battery, jumper wires, gear motors, power jack, speaker, infrared receiver, rotation servos, various brackets and hardware, motorized scroll saw, etc.

Create sketches that will tell the robot what to do. Basically, program its brain.

When I was six, I climbed up on the roof of the house, trying to be a superhero. I was Iron Man in my Iron Man suit, only in reality I was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of swim trunks, which meant that instead of flying I dove headfirst into the earth and cracked my skull open. Sixty-seven stitches. Did I recognize people before that? I can’t remember.

Give it a good brain. A complete, fully functioning, normal, regular brain.

ONE WEEK LATER

* * *

October first is a Tuesday. I play sick and hide the keys to the Land Rover so Marcus can’t take it to school. When a tall boy with shaggy hair comes into my room and starts yelling at me, I figure it’s him. “I know you’ve got the keys, you faker.”

I cough loudly.

He starts digging through my shit—bookshelves, drawers, closet. He’s picking my jeans up off the floor and searching the pockets.

I hack away like I’ve got tuberculosis until a woman appears at the door and wants to know what in the Great Fanny Adams is going on.

In answer, I cough myself ragged, which makes her point to the door and tell the tall/shaggy boy to get the hell downstairs. NOW. The woman says, “Do you need anything before we go?”

“I’ll be okay.” I don’t actually mean to, but I sound like a martyr. I cough a little more.

And then she’s gone, and I lie still, listening to the leaving sounds that are happening downstairs.

I hear the front door slam, and I lie there another minute. I hear a car engine kick in, and then I’m up and at the window, counting the bodies down below. The woman climbs into one car with this little kid, and a man with thick dark hair gets in another car with the tall/shaggy boy. I watch them pull away and turn in opposite directions at the end of the block, first one and then the other. Like that, I fly into motion. I’m grabbing the keys from beneath the mattress, pulling on clothes, running down the stairs, shoving a bagel in my mouth, jumping in the Land Rover, and heading across town to Libby’s.

Libby’s neighborhood is street after street of these new houses that look identical, one after the other. There’s nothing to distinguish her house from the rest of them except for the girl who lives there. She’s waiting for me on the curb, wearing this purple dress, and it reminds me of something an actual woman would wear, tucked here, loose there, fitted there. Her hair is down and lit up by the sun.




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