Anyway, that's what he says.' She leaned close and whispered in my ear. 'But I don't think so. I think he eats with other women.'
'What other women?' I said in a low voice.
I don't know,' she whispered. 'But I heard Mother tell him he smelled of Passion. That's a perfume. My mother knows all about perfumes.
She makes them.'
'But why would your dad want to have dinner with other women when your mother is such a good cook? ' 'I don't know,' she said. 'But it makes Mother unhappy.'
'Because he won't eat her cooking?' 'I guess. They're always being nasty about it. It scares me. I'm afraid they'll get in a real fight, and something awful will happen.'
We were quiet a long time. it really was a super night with the stars and all. There was a half-moon and it lighted up the whole sky. It made everything seem big.
'You know,' I said to Tania, 'I've been thinking.
Maybe I'll leave.'
'Leave where?'
'Home. Maybe I'll leave home.'
She turned to look at me. 'But where would you go?'
'I don't know. But I'd like to go somewhere. Away from here.'
'But how would you do it?' she asked. 'I mean how would you travel?'
'I've got some money, ' I said. 'Not very much, but maybe it's enough for a bus ticket somewhere. Or I could hitch a ride. Like on a truck going up north or anywhere.
I don't care.'
She was silent awhile. Then, 'When are you going to go?'
'I don't know. I haven't decided yet. But I don't want to live at home anymore. I want to be someplace else. Maybe I'll meet some people who'll take me in. Nice people.'
'Chet,' Tania said, 'can I go with you? When you decide to go, can I go along with you?'
'I don't know,' I said. 'It might be dangerous. I've never been away from home before. Ernie Hamilton, he went to camp.'
'I don't care. If you go away, I want to go with you.
Okay?
'I'll have to think about it,' I told her. 'It's very important.'
'I know it is. If you leave home, promise me I can go with you.
Promise me, Chet. Cross your heart and hope to die.'
'I'll think about it,' I said, and that's all I said. After a while I got up and went home. just like I knew, my father was in the den with the door closed, and Mom was watching TV.
I went upstairs to my bedroom, locked the door, and counted my money.
I had four dollars and sixty-seven cents. I didn't know how much bus tickets cost, but I thought it would be more than that. But if Tania came with me, maybe she could get some money.
I thought it would be great if we were just walking along and found a wallet someone had lost, and it had a lots of money in it.
That would really be neat.
I'll tell you one thing, When I grow up and get married, I won't be like my dad.
I'll talk right and have a kid, I will talk to my wife, as much as she wants, and I'll do things with my kid.
Like I'll take him to the movies, and er been fishing. Also, I will we'll go fishing. I've nev play catch with him and things like that.
I felt like crying, but of course I didn't. It was okay for Tania to cry, she's a girl, but I couldn't cry. That's for girls and babies.
Although once I saw my mom cry. I went into her bedroom without knocking, and she was sitting on the bed hunched over, and she was crying. I don't know what for. I just went away.
I never saw my father cry, but I never really heard him laugh either.
Sometimes he smiles, but not very often.
After I run away, I'm going to laugh all the time. That shows you're happy, don't it? Well, I'm going to be happy. And Tania will laugh, too. We'll be happy together.
'don't want to lean on you, Greg,' Mr. McWhortle.Lsaid to me, 'but you know what the military is like, They want everything tomorrow. So requisition whatever you need and don't worry about the expense. We have a cost-plus contract, Uncle Sam is picking up the tab.
Actually, there wasn't a great deal I needed in the way of new hardware and supplies. My private research lab at McWhortle's is fully equipped and our own supply department could provide from stock most of the additional items I required.
I had two small video cameras on tripods moved in along with an eighteen-inch TV monitor and VCR. Stacks of small wire cages were arranged along one wall. They held thirty mice-ten males, twenty females of a normal strain. And I had a new lock affixed to the lab door. It could be opened only with a magnetic card.
I kept one, the other was held by our security department.
After these arrangements were completed, I settled down in front of my PC and consulted the database I I have found to be of most value in chemical research. I had done a great deal of reading on testosterone prior to developing the new synthetic formulation. Now I concentrated on the behavioral aspects of the sex hormone.
The information I gleaned was for the most part conjectural and, in some cases, contradictory. But I learned that it was generally believed that high testosterone levels were indeed linked to aggression. Apparently this was true of all the primates, not just humans.
Several studies concluded that high testosterone levels did not exist solely in muggers and football players but were also present in dominant and successful individuals in business, the professions, and the arts. There were some oddities noted, actors, for instance, were found to have a plenitude of the sex hormone, while ministers and academics usually had low levels. I wondered idly what my own testosterone level might be.
I found nothing in my research that indicated or even suggested that the ingestion of additional testosterone would heighten the aggressive behavior of human males. But neither did I find anything that flatly refuted such a possibility. So, in a sense, I would be venturing into terra incognita.
I wish I could tell you that I was completely engrossed by the ZAP Project and thought of nothing else. But I must confess my personal problems had assumed such size and complexity that they interfered with my concentration on the task assigned me.
I admit it.
My confusion and indecision were compounded when Marleen Todd told me she was contemplating divorce as her only means of escaping an unhappy marriage. My immediate reaction-which I didn't voice to her-was that it might serve me just as well, ending a marriage I found and and mean.
There is something else I should disclose, I had long harbored suspicion that Chester was not my natural son. I married Mabel because she told me she was pregnant and refused to have an abortion. Marrying her seemed the proper thing to do.
It is true that I had sexual relations with her (once) prior to the time she discovered her pregnancy. But it is also true that at the time she was seeing other men, and I had little doubt that she had granted them the same favors she had granted me (once).
I suspected it was quite possible she didn't know precisely who the father of her child really was, and she had picked me because my income and career prospects were the best of all the men with whom she had been intimate. I had been selected as a victim, the one man who would pay for the indiscretions of several.
My reconstruction of what happened may or may not be accurate. But the uncertainty had soured my marriage from the start. Mabel and I-and eventually Chester-observed an armed truce, and what should have been a warm, loving relationship was spoiled by caution, inattention, and even rancor.
Despite all this-and here's the part I truly did not understand-I could not hate Mabel, even if my suspicion was correct. She had acted in her own best interest, and to blame a human being for doing that is akin to blaming them for breathing.
In truth, I believe I felt an odd affection for her, even though I rarely revealed it in word or deed.. She was not
