He’d been talking like this all summer. The body is a machine, the mind is a pilot.
Yeah, I said, you’re a regular man of steel.
I’ll prove it to you, he said. Punch me.
Oh you don’t want me to punch you, I said.
This is an ugly thing that Stevie brought out in me. I was bigger than him, stronger than him. I could put him in unbreakable headlocks, manhandle him into closets, make him cry if I wanted. I didn’t do it often, but I liked knowing I could.
So he tried to slap me and I knocked his hand away. Come on, come on, he said, and kept slapping. I fended him off, and flicked a few shots at his chin. He started swinging wildly, and I pushed his arms away, and then his fist connected with my lip. That pissed me off. So I socked him in the side of the head.
He spun away from me, a hand over his ear. See? he said. His eyes were welling with tears, but he made himself laugh. Okay, good, he said.
He charged at me again, throwing crazy punches, a tantrum, going for velocity and damage and not even trying to protect himself. You could only fight like this with your brother, or your best friend.
We went on like that for a while, until I was straddled on top of him, my fist raised. But I couldn’t hit him while he was flat on the ground, bleeding, and smiling at me.
He dabbed at his nose, and held up his red hand. Sprung a leak, he said.
Sure, I said, and it doesn’t hurt a bit.
Nope.
Why’d you start crying then?
He shoved me off him. Nobody has total control, he said condescendingly. Too many systems are on automatic. But I’m working on it.
I don’t remember what I said at that point. Some crack.
Stevie shook his head and pulled up his shirt. You think this is me. This, he said, running a finger down the bruise, is hull damage.
He grinned. The pilot, he said, is intact. He pointed at his eye. Behind there. Can you see me? Hey man, I’m waving at you.
“It must be hard to do this again,” I said. We were in her back yard, sitting on the same green wrought-iron patio furniture they’d always had.
“You mean, at my age.” She was breastfeeding William, holding him close with a blanket draped over her shoulder and covering her breast, but he was a big guy, and kept yanking off the blanket. I kept looking away.
“No! Well—”
“It’s all right. You know, I didn’t breastfeed Steven. Back then, formula was supposed to be better. You were a formula baby, too.” She glanced up at me. “I never would have planned on this. But it happened, and I wouldn’t trade him back.”
“Of course not.”
“Still, it’ll be good to get away.” Mr. Spero was going to a convention over the weekend, and she was taking William to her sister’s house in Cedar Falls. “Thank you for watching the house, by the way.”
“Not a problem. That’s what neighbors are for.”
The baby’s head lolled sideways, eyes half closed. He looked drunk. She dabbed the thin milk from the corner of his lips, and he smiled. Then she did something to her bra, and deftly buttoned her shirt. All with one hand.
“Do you still have any of Stevie’s movies?” I asked. She didn’t look up. “You know, the videos, or the film cans?”
She shook her head slightly, still not looking at me. “I don’t think so. I’m sure they’re gone.”
“Gone where?”
“We gave a lot of stuff away, after. Boxes and boxes.”
The car pulled up behind me, the engine loud against the side of the house. I turned around, putting a smile on my face.
Mr. Spero stepped out of the car, his suit coat over one arm. “Well look what the cat dragged in.” He said it lightly, a little chuckle behind it.
“Hello, Mr. Spero.”
“Claire told me you’d moved in. I couldn’t believe it.” He draped his jacket over the back of one of the patio chairs. His shoes were still shiny, his bright yellow tie still cinched, as if important clients might ring the bell at any moment. “Now where’s my boy?”
He took the child from Mrs. Spero and turned to me. “He’s a big one, isn’t he? What a monster!”
It was true. He looked like he’d be much bigger than Stevie, more solid.
“Careful, I just fed him,” Mrs. Spero said. “I need to go turn on the oven.” She disappeared into the house, and Mr. Spero jiggled the boy in his arms.
“So what brings you back to our little town, Timmy? It can’t be the job prospects.”
“I work over the internet,” I said. “My office can be anywhere.”
“The internet? I thought you guys all went out of business.” The baby started to fuss, and Mr. Spero sat down where Claire had been. “There we go, there we go.” He patted his back, and the baby twisted his head back and forth, knuckles crammed into a slobbering mouth.
“So why come back here?” Mr. Spero said. “I’d think that someone in your situation would want to be near family.”
“Situation?” I kept my face blank. I waited for him to glance at the crutches leaning against my chair, or the bulge under my shirt from the flange and colostomy bag. Just glance.
He stared at me over the top of the baby, and huffed. “Never mind. No one could ever tell you what to do. Or your dad, either.” The baby pushed up on his legs and grabbed one of his father’s ears, and Mr. Spero shook his head back and forth playfully.
“I like this town,” I lied. “And somebody has to come back. To watch over the neighborhood. Make sure it stays a nice place to raise kids.”
“So you sit in your room and type on your computer. That’s a hell of a job.”
“I analyze quality control data for a parts manufacturer.”
The baby grabbed an eyebrow, and Mr. Spero said “Ouch!” and pulled his face away. He held the baby’s hands, and the boy stood shakily. Mr. Spero bounced his legs, and the baby went up and down, grunting:
“I try to explain catastrophic failure,” I said. “Like when a tire blows out, or an O-ring disintegrates on lift- off.”
“Really,” Mr. Spero said. The baby grinned madly. Mr. Spero chuckled and bounced him higher.
“Estimating catastrophe time is a different problem, statistically, than estimating gradual wear—you get a Weibull distribution rather than a normal curve. We do test-to-failure runs, and just try to grind a part into dust. Everything fails eventually. My job is to figure out why some things fall apart too soon. I sort through all the variables and find out which ones contributed to failure.”
He ignored me. William looked ecstatic.
“A lot of the time, it’s because of some flaw from early in the manufacturing process, like a hairline crack in the seal, say.”
The baby’s head dropped forward, and a mouthful of grey fluid dumped onto Mr. Spero’s shirt. William grinned, ready to play.
“Damn it! Claire! Claire!” He thrust the baby away from him, dangling it in the air. The child spit up again, spattering the floor, and started to howl.
Claire rushed out of the house, a towel already in her hand. “Were you throwing him around? You know what he’s like after—”
“Christ, Claire, can you just get him off me?”
She took the baby from him and Mr. Spero grabbed the towel from her. He dabbed at his chest. “I’m too fucking old for this,” he said.
I held up my arms. “Here, let me take him.”
Mr. Spero threw down the towel and stomped into the house, already unbuttoning his shirt.
