Kill Switch

“Da?” I say.

He turns from Jarrod’s direction and toward me, slowly taking in the panorama as he does. It is piney, crisp, and fresh, trees looking like they were peed on by dinosaurs, the parking lot empty as advertised, the small words spoken floating easily on the breeze and bouncing back off the woods and unpeopled buildings and stony silent hills like faces of old wise men who will never tell.

He smokes less frantically now, smiles, and flashes me the unmistakable sharp lucidity of the good times.

He is happy. Right now. Unobserved.

I am a good boy.

“An unobserved life, Young Man, is the only life worth living.”

“Is that so, Old Boy?”

“Yes. You are not who you are, when you are being watched. You never even find out who you are, while you are being watched.”

“Well, I suppose that’s why we are here now. To get you away from the observation.”

“I know.”

Everybody everywhere says “I know,” I know. It means next to nothing. But when Da says “I know,” I need to know.

“Do you, Da? Do you get what this is all about?”

He pauses, walks up to me with his head tilted in a quizzical way, a thin smile aimed at me. When he is right in front of me, he holds up his wrist, showing off his MedicAlert.

“Daniel, this says ‘memory loss.’ It does not say ‘moron.’”

I look down at my feet for a few seconds. It has been my intention right along to be sure I never made him feel like that.

“I’m sorry, Da. I swear I didn’t mean that at all.”

“Didn’t mean what?” he says chirpily to the top of my shamed head.

This is not a good time for one of his mental departures. I look up expecting the sad, scary vacant look.

Except he’s grinning, almost giggling like a kid.

“So you were just faking that, yes?” I say.

“I’m always faking,” he says slyly. “You really should never pay any attention to me at all.”

“Okay,” I say. “I won’t.”

“And one more thing. You are really going to have to toughen up. Don’t be so sensitive. Sensitivity is fatal in this world. I wouldn’t have cared if I hurt your feelings, so don’t worry about mine.”

I wait to see if he’s got anything else. When he doesn’t, I nod and walk past him on the way to the dorms.

“I guess it’s a good thing I don’t pay attention to you at all now.”

“Ha!” he says at my back. It is a very approving ha.

I suppose this could be a dry run for my actual college experience coming up in a few weeks. If it is, I will be well prepared to be part of the oddest dorm trio on any campus.

Jarrod and Da are talking at the table of our small kitchen when I come out from the shower.

“Sheez-o, man, Danny, why didn’t you tell me what a full-blown trip your granddad is?”

“I guess we’re just modest on this side of the family. Why, what’s he been telling you?”

“What hasn’t he been telling me?”

I wait for elaboration. I wait in vain.

“Da?”

“I’ve just been filling young Jarrod in on the thrills and chills of my exploits in the world of agribusiness.”

“Angry-business,” Jarrod pipes up. “That’s what the guys all called it.”

I stare at Da for signs. Is he in? Is he out? Is he still with us?

His squint-eyed mischief-maker face tells me he is very much in. There is none of the crazy on him right now.

“Okay,” I say, taking up a chair opposite my grandfather, “what exploits would those be?”

“Tell him the Tel Aviv one,” Jarrod says.

“I believe someone said something about a smoke?” Da says, all cagey hold-back all of a sudden.

“Absolutely,” Jarrod says, fishing a Rastafarian-quality spliff out of his shirt pocket.

“Da?” I ask, and I hear myself sounding like a prig, but really. “Are you serious here?”

“Sure, why not? Now that I am retired”-he chews every letter before spitting the word out-“I can self-medicate at will. That’s what they want anyway, really.”

Jarrod lights up, pulls hard, then breathes out the words “Tell Tel Aviv.”

“There’s not a whole lot to tell, really. I just had an assignment to climb up the front of an apartment building that was partially under construction, climb onto a man’s balcony, and damage his eyes.”

“What?” I say in a tall, shrill voice. “What? I mean, what? You never did that. He’s pulling your leg, Jarrod.”

Jarrod looks deflated, watching Da draw hard on the smoke.

Da then speaks in that smoke voice. “All true,” he rasps.

“What? What? Why? Why would you do that?”

“Because I was told to. I was just doing my job. You know, a straightened paper clip punctures straight through a man’s eyelids with surprisingly little resistance.”

“What?” I am not making much progress, admittedly. “What? What does any of that have to do with agribusiness?”

“Angry-business,” Jarrod corrects me. “You want a hit off this?”

“No,” I squeal. “Come on, Da. Stop with all the nutty now. You are scaring me here.”

“Don’t be scared, Young Man,” he says, and all trace of jokiness has vanished. “Don’t be scared. It doesn’t do you any good, and it keeps you from realizing your potential.”

Potential. It sounds like a funny word at the moment. Could my dear grandfather possibly have the potential to create the grisly mayhem he’s talking about? I am not stupid; I am not naive. I always suspected his professional life wasn’t quite as tidy and straight as he made it out to be. And yes, the weird special interest he’s been getting from old colleagues suggests that things are more serious than I had believed. But I was thinking maybe they were just getting worried that his loose cannonism meant he was going to start disseminating classified-type information. I would not have believed this.

And I still don’t.

“Why would you actually maim another person, Da? It just doesn’t compute. You can be a prickly guy sometimes, but there’s no way you could ever be-”

“He was a scientist of some kind,” Da says offhandedly. “I really didn’t do a lot of homework on him, so I didn’t know hardly anything about him. All I knew was that he was doing some great and important work, for which he needed his eyes, and he was doing that work for the incorrect guys.”

Now, I get a chill.

I take the joint.

I cough hard enough to break my own ribs, because I don’t smoke.

Da hops up and pounds my back, hard and many times, until I have to ask him to stop.

Here is one of my weaknesses, the kind of thing Da always mocked and scolded me for. When events spin out my control and understanding, I instinctively call my sister. Yes, it is childish, and no, she does not normally come up with insights or warm words. In fact, she is usually kind of an ass.

But the world gets back on its axis when I do it. For whatever reason.

I take out my cell phone.

“What are you doing?” Da asks.

“Making a call. Just calling home. To see if anybody even noticed we’re gone.”

“No,” Da says, and wrests the phone out of my hand with such calm authority, I feel, for a second, like that other stuff could actually be true. “No cell phones, Daniel. The basics here. You use your phone and they will be here today. You want them to catch us?” He assaults my phone like he’s disemboweling roadkill for supper, removing the battery and stuffing it in one pocket, slipping the SIM card into another.

“Hey, I got that phone for my graduation,” I said.