Lost Boys

13: God

This is how they finally found a name for Zap's condition: All through the autumn, every month they had a visit from Jerusha Gilbert, the nurse from the county high-risk baby clinic. Jerusha found on her first visit that everything she normally checked on, DeAnne and Step were already doing. She still stayed her full hour, however, and came back every month; as she told DeAnne, most of the kids she was tracking had fetal alcohol syndrome or prenatal care problems, so it wasn't hard to imagine that the homes Jerusha visited weren't usually the most pleasant places. And because she didn't have to do the usual remedial work, she began to research more advanced ideas that DeAnne and Step could be trying with Zap.

It was Jerusha who first said cerebral palsy. "It's not a diagno sis, of course," she said, "because it never is.

Cerebral palsy isn't a medical term, it's a catchall basket in which we throw all the conditions that seem to be related to some kind of brain dysfunction. The rigid kids, the floppy kids, some retarded, some bright as can be.

Some who walk, some who ride in motorized chairs, some who lie in bed emitting a continuous high-pitched whine the whole time they're conscious, if you can call it consciousness. At some point everybody sort of agrees that this particular condition is CP, and then a certain system takes over. So it's really your decision, you know.

Start calling Zap's condition CP, and nobody's really going to argue with you."

"What if it's really something else?" asked Step.

"It's always really something else," said Jerusha. "The CP label just means that we all agree that we don't know what it is, but the kid needs help with a certain group of activities. And you're very lucky, if you decide that it's CP, because Steuben has one of the four or five best facilities for cerebral palsy in the United States."

"It does?" asked DeAnne.

"On the east side of town. The Open Doors Education Center. A really nice building, too. The city runs it now, but it was originally set up from contributions from the citizens. The parents of the kids with CP went around collecting until they had enough. And that's still the feeling there. The full range of everything- no matter what Zap turns out to need, they'll have it there. And also for preschoolers there's the Daggett Center. They charge, because their support is from foundations rather than government, but it's not that expensive. That kicks in when Zap is two. I mean, if you have to have a kid with neural problems, this is just about the best city in the U.S. for him to grow up in."

Cerebral palsy. Well, at least they had heard of it before. As soon as they had this name for Zap's problems, they talked about it with the kids in family home evening. Step told them about the kid he had known who had CP. "He was sixteen when I lived in Mesa," said Step. " I was about thirteen. He was in the same ward as me. I thought when I first saw him that he was retarded, because he walked funny and his head rolled back and forth when he walked, and when he talked you could hardly understand him. But then I remember standing there in the hall one time-I was reading the Doctrine and Covenants, I think, it was my project right then-and he comes out of one of the classrooms and just stands there near me, and I guess he was so mad that he just couldn't keep it in, he started talking to me. And it scared me, because he was strange, but I stood there and I listened and I realized that I really could understand him if I paid attention, and he was talking in complete sentences, and what he was doing was complaining about how the ward leadership wouldn't let him do anything and it made him so mad. I remember he said, 'They think I'm retarded but I'm not retarded, I get straight A's, I'm smarter than they are, but they won't let me bless the sacrament! They didn't let me be baptized till I was twelve because they wouldn't believe I was smart enough to be accountable.' Of course he was saying all this really slowly, and he had a hard time forming the words, and I remember it was like a revelation to me. This guy wasn't dumb. He was a person. And his feelings were hurt, and I was one of the ones who might have hurt them sometime, because heaven knows 1 had been afraid of him, I had thought he was retarded. But when he was done with his rant about how they wouldn't give him a chance, I said, 'I think you should bless the sacrament.' And I guess that was all he needed to hear, just somebody agreeing with him, even a thirteen- year-old runt of a kid with a book in his hands, cause he said to me, 'Well someday I will."'

"Did he?" demanded Robbie.

"Before I left there, I saw him lurch up those stairs to the sacrament table. Must have taken him five times as long as anybody else to say the prayer, but he said every word, and when he handed the trays to the deacons the trays shook and sometimes the water spilled a little but he did it. And at first people were embarrassed, but then later I heard them saying, That's one spunky kid, things like that. They were proud of him."

Then DeAnne said, "You kids are going to have a special responsibility as Zap's brothers and sister. You have to make sure that you treat him as naturally as you'd treat any other kid. That you never act ashamed of him in any way. Because if you act as if there's something awful or shameful about Zap, then others will, too."

"He's my little brother!" said Robbie.

"That's right," said DeAnne.

"It won't always be easy" said Step. "My Aunt Ella is retarded, which isn't the same thing, but she had a kind of look about her that made her seem strange and funny, and she was growing up in the 1920s, and people weren't very nice about things like that, especially the kids weren't. And my mom was her younger sister."

"That's Grandma Sal!" cried Robbie.

"Gammah!" shouted Betsy.

"That's right, your grandma Sal," said Step. "And when she was seven or eight years old, she was walking to school one day with Aunt Ella, and my mother tells how she was so embarrassed, she was really horrible to Aunt Ella, making her walk way behind her or on the other side of the street sometimes so that nobody would know they were together-but then, my mom was a little girl and nobody told her that she shouldn't be ashamed.

And one time this bunch of kids came up and started throwing stuff at them and yelling ugly names at them, just because Aunt Ella was retarded, and my mom, just a little girl named Sally then, she sat down on the curb and cried and cried, with those kids still running around and yelling, and Aunt Ella sat down beside her and put her arm around my mom and said, 'Don't cry, Sally. They don't know. Don't cry, Sally. They're just mean."'

DeAnne looked at Step rather oddly. "Why are you telling this story, Step?"

It occurred to him that the kids might get the idea that because Zap was their brother, they'd be teased or mistreated, and surely that wasn't why he started telling it. For a moment Step was confused and couldn't answer, so he did what any confused parent does, he pretended that he intended it to be a "teaching moment."

"Why do you think I told this story, Robbie?" asked Step.

"Cause we don't care if they're mean to Zap, because we're going to walk to school with him anyway! And we're going to walk right with him and not cross the street without him because then he'd be scared!"

Robbie had found the right lesson in the story even if Step had forgotten what it was supposed to be.

Then Stevie, without even being called on, said, "I think Aunt Ella was the smartest one, even if she was retarded."

"Why?" asked Step, pleased that Stevie had come up with this on his own.

"Cause all she cared about was that Grandma Sal was crying," said Stevie. "She didn't get mad at the bad kids, she just tried to make Grandma Sal feel better."

"OK, I think we've all got the point of the lesson, haven't we?" said Step.

"We have to tell Zap that he mustn't cry!" said Robbie.

"Zap can cry if he wants," said Step. "You know that's a rule in our family, that we can cry whenever we feel like it. Stevie, what's the main point of this lesson?"

"We've got to help Zap to be part of everything and no t get left out and make sure people don't think he's retarded."

"That's very good, Stevie," said Step, "Now, it may turn out as years go by that we might find out that Zap really does have mental limitations, that he really is retarded, and that will be OK, too, because my Aunt Ella's been retarded all her life and she's a good person and she's made a lot of people happy. But chances are that Zap won't be retarded. And no matter what, we still treat him right and we're never ashamed of him."

"We're proud of him," said Robbie. "He's my very first little brother so I'm a big brother now!"

"Like me," said Stevie.

Step turned to DeAnne. "I think we've got this covered."

That ended the lesson. Robbie waved his arm around to lead the closing song and DeAnne helped Betsy say the closing prayer and then they had ice cream while DeAnne nursed Zap, shielding her modesty with a cloth diaper draped from her shoulder.

"Zap's getting his dessert, too!" cried Robbie.

"Bet it tastes an awful lot like his dinner," said Step. "And his salad, and his lunch."

"And his cornflakes!" shouted Robbie. "And his tuna fish!"

"Do I have to feed the baby in another room?" asked DeAnne. But she didn't really mind. None of their problems and worries had really gone away, but this was a good night. They were a happy family, for this hour, at least. That was enough for the day.

With only a few exceptions, that was how the autumn went. DeAnne drove Stevie and Robbie to their different schools every morning while Step stayed with Betsy and Zap. Even with two kids to take to school there was less stress in the mornings, because she didn't have to get Betsy dressed and fed, too.

Not that she could sleep in. She had to pull out of the driveway fifteen minutes earlier in the morning than last year, because so many other parents were driving their kids to school and picking them up afterward that traffic at the school was a nightmare. Fear of the serial killer had changed the lives of a lot of people in Steuben.

The parents who couldn't pick their kids up met the schoolbus at the stop. Working parents formed co-ops, and a lot of local businesses let people take their lunch hours at the time school let out so that fewer and fewer kids had to let themselves into an empty house after school.

Being a mother was a fulltime job for DeAnne now, so much so that she even let some of her church work slide now and then, giving a couple of lessons that weren't quite as well prepared as usual, though no one seemed to notice the difference. The focus of her life was now Zap-she had no choice, really. Whether it was lingering aftereffects of the phenobarbital or just Zap's native sleep pattern, he tended to sleep for eighteen or twenty-four hours straight and then wake up ravenous. This was very uncomfortable for DeAnne, of course-either she had to wake up and force him to eat at least every eight hours, or she had to pump her milk and freeze it for him. She had too much for the times he was sleeping and not enough for his first meal when he woke up.

Also, since he spent so little of his time awake, she couldn't bear the thought of him wasting any of that time lying alone in his bed. Because he didn't have the use of his arms and legs the way normal babies did, he couldn't experiment with rattles or even with his own body the way most kids did. Thus any time he spent awake and alone was completely empty, and DeAnne was afraid that he'd get bored and lose all interest in life and simply sleep himself to death. She was not about to let that happen. As far as she could manage it, there would be no empty hours. If he woke up at midnight, so did she, and stayed awake with him, talking and playing, moving his hands and feet for him, singing to him. She'd catch catnaps during the day when he was sleeping, and now and then she'd have a full night's sleep. But it was wearing her down and she didn't have much energy for the other kids. She couldn't help it-they were able to supply so much more for themselves that they just didn't need her the way Zap did. She still helped with homework and projects, as did Step, but Robbie and Betsy spent a lot of time entertaining each other-becoming quite good friends as Betsy began to catch on to some of the rules of civilized behavior. Stevie spent a lot of time alone.

Step tried to make up for DeAnne's preoccupation with Zap by playing games with the kids, but as often as not he was fixing meals or doing laundry while DeAnne napped, and so he wasn't actually involved in what the kids were doing. And whenever possible he closed himself off in his office, struggling with IBM PC assembly language until he finally realized that he could get similar results using the new Turbo C language, which amounted to throwing away all he had done so far and starting over. It was maddening work, in part because the computer was so annoyingly designed and he had to use so many kludges to make the graphics work halfway decently or to get the tiny PC speaker to produce sounds that didn't make you want to sledgehammer the machine into silence. When Step was finding a bug or puzzling out a solution to a particular problem, his concentration was so deep that he'd look up from his computer wondering if DeAnne needed him to help fix lunch, only to discover that it was dusk outside and she was already in the kitchen washing up after dinner.

Back in Indiana they had already determined that their lives worked more smoothly if she didn't make it a point to call Step to dinner. If he was concentrating so heavily that he didn't notice her calling the kids, then he wouldn't want her to interrupt him anyway.

So they were both a bit hit-and- miss when it came to the three older children that fall, and when they noticed, as they often did, that Stevie was still involved with his invisible friends to the exclusion of almost everything else, it bothered them, but they were able to console themselves that it didn't mean he was losing his mind or that anybody was out to get him. It was just a trial he was passing through, and in the end it might even strengthen him. In the meantime there was Zap and Hacker Snack and not all that much time left over.

On the first of September CNN was full of the news of Korean Air Lines flight 007, which had gone down over Soviet airspace, probably shot down by the Russians. Step and DeAnne were complete news junkies- they ate dinner with the TV blaring away in the family room so they could hear it in the kitchen.

The phone rang. DeAnne was already up getting something from the fridge and she snagged the receiver off the hook, said a couple of words, and handed it to Step. "It's Lee."

"Hi, Lee," said Step. "You're really something, calling me on the first day of the month. You'll make me into a first-rate home teacher yet."

"Don't waste my time," said Lee.

"Sorry," said Step. What was his problem? "What did you call about?"

"I know all about it," said Lee. "I know what you did. You're the one who has to put everybody under the water yourself, aren't you?"

"What? I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't act innocent with me," said Lee. "I can hear your TV on in the background. You're tuned to CNN

just like Mother. You put them in the water, all of them."

"Lee, do you actually think I had something to do with that Korean Air Lines jet?"

"All I want to know from you is, are prepared for the consequences of nuclear war? Because the Communists won't let you baptize them. They're not Christian, and they won't put up with it. They'll send the missiles. I've studied the effects of nuclear war. I know about nuclear winter. I know what it will be like for the common people. But you're too smart to be trapped. Nobody can trap you."

Whatever precipice Lee had been walking along all these months, Step realized, he was definitely over the edge now.

"Lee, there isn't going to be nuclear war."

Lee laughed. "Did you think you could just lie to me and I'd go away? No, I'm not going to forget you. I'm stuck to you like glue. When you get on that submarine, I'm going to be with you."

"Lee, are you at home right now?"

"God is in me now, Step. I'm not even using the phone, what do you think of tha t?"

"Well I'm using the phone," said Step.

"I don't need telephones when God is in me. I can see you right now. I can see your whole family."

"Where are you?"

"I'm everywhere. I'm in everything. I am love, Step. I am that I am." He giggled. "Moses never did understand what I meant by that."

"Lee, get ahold of yourself."

"All of those people under the water, like Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea. You want to be Moses? Parting the water, drowning people? Well, you can be my prophet if you want to. But you'd better pray first. You'd better offer a sacrifice."

Lee's words had long since gone from strange to disturbing. "Where are you, Lee?"

"You can't find me," said Lee. "Nobody can, because I'm invisible."

"Why did you call me?"

"Because you're the only one who has the power to say no to me."

"Not even your mother?"

"Shh." Suddenly he was whispering. "Don't tell her. Promise."

"I can't promise that, Lee. You need help."

"No, you need help!" Lee sounded very angry, now, but he was still speaking in a fairly low voice. "You need a lot of help, because I'm going to stop you before you put everybody under the water. I will not allow you to destroy the world again."

"Lee, I'm just a guy you go home teaching with."

"I know that," said Lee, derisively. "Do you think I don't know who you are? You must be crazy if you think you can hide from me."

"I'm hanging up now, Lee."

"Don't leave without me." Lee suddenly sounded frightened, desperate. "Let me have a place on the submarine! I won't eat much."

"Good-bye, Lee."

"Do you really have to go?"

"Yes."

"OK." Now he sounded cheerful. "Nice talking to you. Ta-ta for now!"

Step set the receiver back on the hook. "DeAnne, I need Dr. Weeks's number."

Before he finished saying it, she handed him a note card with the number written on it. "Her home phone?" he asked.

"I looked it up," said DeAnne. "I had a feeling you'd be using it."

When he got her on the phone, Dr. Weeks did not sound at all surprised to learn that Lee had called. "He said he was invisible," Step explained. "He said that he was talking to me without using a phone."

"Well, he was using the phone," said Dr. Weeks.

"Yes, I know that." He covered the receiver and whispered to DeAnne, "She thinks I'm crazy." Then to Dr.

Weeks he said, "Listen, something's wrong with Lee and I wanted you to know, that's all. He's really upset and he's talking about being God and he thinks I shot down flight 007."

"Apparently you've become a power figure to him," said Dr. Weeks. "These fixations never last and he means no harm."

"So you've got things under control?"

"He palms his pills, you see," said Dr. Weeks. "But eventually he has to sleep."

"He's on medication?"

"I don't discuss matters like this with nonprofessionals," said Dr. Weeks.

"Fine," said Step. "Just keep your son from calling nonprofessionals and you won't have to discuss it with them."

"Thank you for your concern," said Dr. Weeks. "I'll handle things now. Good-bye."

That was that.

"What did she say?" asked DeAnne.

"I guess she's handling it." But he thought of the delusions that Lee was creating about him and his family, and he wondered if Dr. Weeks really had anything under control at all.

Step was in the grocery store when an insistent voice started calling out, "Brother Fletcher! Brother Fletcher!" It startled him, to hear himself called Brother outside of church. Most Mormons were a bit more discreet than that. Then he saw it was Sister LeSueur, and he understood.

"How is that lovely family of yours doing, Brother Fletcher?" she asked.

"Just fine," he said.

"I've been praying for your family every day," she said. "And I dedicated my Thursday fast to your little baby last week. I fast every Thursday, you know."

"Thanks for thinking of us," said Step, eager to get away from her. She was speaking so loudly. She must want something from him, but he couldn't guess what it might be.

"I received a witness that you are indeed special unto the Lord," she said.

"How kind of him to tell you that," said Step. He glanced past her down the aisle, to see if anyone had been attracted by the noise. No one was even there. Or behind him, either. They had the canned soup section all to themselves.

"But there must needs be a time of testing first," said Sister LeSueur. "That's what your dear little baby is all about."

Step felt anger well up inside. How dare she attempt to co-opt Zap's tenuous little life. "I think Zap's life is going to be about himself," said Step. "Just like any other child."

She reached out and touched his arm, beaming. "You are so right, Brother Fletcher. It must be wonderful, to be blessed with so much insight from the Spirit."

"I really have to get the shopping done and get home, so ..."

At the end of the aisle, a woman was standing, watching them. Step knew her, but he couldn't place her.

Was she somebody from Eight Bits?

"Don't you think it's time for you to bless your child?" asked Sister LeSueur.

"Don't you think that's a matter for me and DeAnne to decide?" No, the woman wasn't from Eight Bits. It was Mrs. Jones. He hadn't recognized her immediately last' time, either, when they met in the drugstore back when Zap was still in the hospital. She was so nondescript.

"The Lord expects us to act boldly and with faith, Brother Fletcher," Sister LeSueur said. "That's what I was told in my dream. The blessing is yours by right, if only you have faith enough to demand it. Like the time I was urgently needed to perform compassionate service. There had been an ice storm the night before, and yet I didn't have time to clear the ice off my car. So I told the Lord that if he wanted me to perform this service in his name, he would need to clear my windshield so I could drive. And when I came outside, mine was the only car that didn't have two inches of ice encasing it."

Mrs. Jones's gaze never wavered. She thinks I'm stalking her, thought Step. With a cart full of groceries and a list in my hand, she thinks I'm here just to pester her.

"The Spirit spake to me in a dream and told me that it's time for Brother Fletcher to claim a healing blessing from the Lord."

"We ask for blessings," said Step. "We don't demand them."

"'I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say,"' she quoted. "Bind the Lord, Brother Fletcher, bind him and heal your child. You are holding his sweet little soul hostage to your pride, saith the Lord."

Saith Dolores LeSueur, Step answered silently.

"You must bend yourself to the will of the Lord, and cease rejecting his word to you. Do you pay your tithing faithfully?"

Still Mrs. Jones stood there. If only I had the tape with me, I could throw it at her and make her stop watching every move I make. He smiled at Sister LeSueur, thinking: I'm faking a smile. Mrs. Jones is watching me like that song by The Police.

"Go unto your child, lay your hands on his head, and command him to rise up and walk!"

"That would be a miracle," he said. "He's barely two months old."

It was as if he had dashed cold water on her. "I know that," she said. "I was sure you would understand that I spoke figuratively."

I'm sure you'll understand that I speak figuratively when I tell you to go sit on a broom handle and spin.

"Sister LeSueur, I appreciate your advice. Now I need to finish my shopping." He swung his cart around to head down the aisle away from Mrs. Jones. But Sister LeSueur caught at his sleeve.

"Brother Fletcher, you cannot resist the Lord forever."

He turned to face her. "I ha ve never resisted the Lord in my life, Sister LeSueur, and I never will. But I'm not so hungry for dialogue with him that I have to make up his part as well as my own."

Her voice got a hard edge. "Beware of how the Lord will chasten you for your pride."

This would be the perfect moment for Mrs. Jones to pull a gun out of her purse and shoot me dead. Sister LeSueur could live off that one event for the rest of her life. But Mrs. Jones wasn't there anymore. She had slipped away while his back was turned.

"'I will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children," said Sis ter LeSueur.

He pushed his cart away from her. In one moment he had played out in his mind the whole scene of his death at Mrs. Jones's hand. It had been so vivid that he could now remember moments of it as if he had actually seen them. The gun coming out of her purse, pointing at his chest-he could have reached out and touched the cold metal. Was that how Stevie's imaginary friends were to him? How Sister LeSueur's visions were to her?

Never there in reality, and yet when they came back in memory, so real-seeming.

"'Unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,"' said Sister LeSueur.

He turned the corner at the end of the aisle, leaving Sister LeSueur's vengeful doctrine behind him. He quickly propelled the cart through the store, weaving among the other shoppers as if on the freeway. It took a while before he realized that he was no longer running away from Sister LeSueur, he was looking for Mrs.

Jones. Because she had been watching him. Because she had made him think of the song. He had to know.

She wasn't down any of the aisles. She wasn't in the checkout lines. Abandoning his cart, Step rushed out of the store and scanned the parking lot. There she was, walking briskly among the cars. He hurried after her.

Perhaps he should have called to her, but he was afraid that she would run away, since she already thought he was stalking her. As it was, when he caught up with her, just as she was putting her key in the door of the Pinto, she gave a little scream.

Step made sure to stay well away from her, his hands in plain sight.

"Mrs. Jones, I wasn't stalking you. I was grocery shopping."

She said nothing.

"But are you stalking me?" he asked.

Her lip curled in contempt.

"You sent me that record, didn't you?"

Her face went blank. "What record?"

"By The Police. That song about watching. Someone mailed it to our house."

"I don't even know where you live."

"We're in the book," said Step, "so don't be absurd. Just tell me if you sent it."

She smiled. "So," she said. "You don't like knowing that some body's watching, is that it?"

"I never dealt with you anonymously Mrs. Jones."

"I didn't mail you anything, Mr. Fletcher," she said, "so it must have been one of the other people yo u're blackmailing."

"Nobody else has persecuted any of my children," said Step.

"So you think it's me. You blame one more problem in your family on a woman who isn't even your son's teacher anymore."

She's enjoying this, he thought. She loves knowing that I'm really bothered by that anonymous record. Just as with Stevie, she loves to make somebody else squirm.

"Your lawyer never called me about a restraining order," said Step.

She shrugged.

"But Captain Douglas of the Steuben police thinks that the fingerprints on the envelope the record came in should be enough to make a positive identification that will stand up in court."

"Don't be stupid," she said.

"Wore gloves, huh?" he asked. "But you didn't wear gloves when you licked the stamp and pressed it onto the envelope."

The stricken look on her face would have been answer enough. Her sudden relaxation a moment later confirmed it.

"That was a relief, I see," said Step.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"Remembering that you had the guy at the post office meter it."

Her face revealed her inner struggle. Had she really let him know that she sent it, or was he bluffing?

"You never thought I was stalking you," said Step. "You've known all along that you were the one watching me. So I'm telling you now, stop it. I've already given your name to the police as a possible sender of that record. They're watching you. So it's time for you to leave me and my family alone."

"Leave you alone!" She sounded defiant, but his mention of the police had clearly bothered her.

"We've done you no harm. I could have reported what you did to the school board and sued the school district and you personally for what you did to Stevie. Your name could have been in all the papers. Instead I tried to be decent and handle it privately. Be grateful for that and stop looking to get even."

"Grateful," she scoffed. "To you? You're so smart, Mr. Fletcher. You and your clever little boy. You can take away other people's careers. You can make them work as temps and live with humiliation and fear every day of their lives."

"Just as Stevie did," said Step.

She glared at him, opened the door of her car, turned her back on him as she slipped inside.

"I keep almost feeling sorry for you," said Step. "And then you prove to me all over again that you thrive on hurting other people. That's what evil is, Mrs. Jones. That's what you are."

She hesitated before closing the door of the car, as if searching for some final, clinching retort. Then she slammed the door and started the engine. Step watched her pull out of the parking place and, with a squeal of tires, race for the street.

At least now I know who sent the record, thought Step. It wasn't from the killer, just as Douglas said. It was from a bully. It was no worse than that.

When he got inside, someone had taken his shopping cart. No doubt a store employee was carefully putting everything back on the shelves. He sighed, pulled his list out of his pocket, and started over.

One night late in September, Step was going to be alone with the children while DeAnne was making a presentation on journalkeeping at homemaking meeting. He knew he should be helping to keep the children out of her hair as she got ready to go, but he was in the middle of a complicated algorithm that wouldn't seem to go right, and he kept thinking, In a minute I'll go help.

Robbie was walking up and down the ha ll, bouncing a ball as hard as he could, a relentless thump, thump, thump that was about to drive Step crazy. Finally he couldn't stand it anymore. He got up and went into the hall to put a stop to the bouncing. At the same moment, DeAnne emerged from the bedroom in her slip, with the same mission in mind. Poor Robbie stood in the hall between them, looking in dread from one to the other.

"Sorry," he said in a small voice.

They both burst out laughing. "Just stop bouncing the ball inside the house, Road Bug," said Step.

"OK," said Robbie. "It don't bounce good on the carpet anyway."

"It doesn't bounce well," said Step.

"I know," said Robbie, puzzled. "I told you."

Half an hour after DeAnne left for the church, the phone rang. It was DeAnne. "This is going to sound stupid, Junk Man, but would you mind asking Robbie where he got that ball?"

"He's had it for years," said Step.

"But it rolled down one of the yucky holes in front of the house the first week we lived here," she said. "I want to know how it got out again. You didn't rescue it, did you?"

"I didn't even know it was lost. Maybe I could put it back."

"Step, please find out or it'll drive me crazy for the rest of my life."

He agreed, hung up, and went in search of Robbie.

"The invisible guy got it for me," said Robbie. "He said it wasn't very far down in the drain, and it came when he called it."

Step might have rebuked him for making up such a weird story, but the mention of an invisible guy gave him pause. "Where did you meet this invisible guy, Road Bug?"

"In the yard today," said Robbie. "He was naked because if he wore clothes people would see him."

"But you could see him," said Step.

"I'm your son," said Robbie, as if that explained everything.

Lee Weeks, thought Step. "How long ago was this?" asked Step. "Before or after Stevie got home from school?"

"Before," said Robbie. "He's gone now. He had to fly to Raleigh."

Step went around the house, double-checking the locks. Then he made Robbie and Stevie go into Betsy's and Zap's bedroom while he went outside.

It was nearly dark, with scant moonlight, but Step saw him almost at once, a pale ghostlike figure standing up against the neighbor's high hedge in the front yard. Step locked the front door behind him and strode toward him.

"How did you get over here with no clothes on, Lee?" he asked.

Lee laughed in delight. "I knew you'd be able to see me. Just like your son."

"You're lucky it wasn't a cop who saw you, Lee. This is called 'indecent exposure' and you go to jail for it."

In fact, though, Lee's naked body was more sad than anything, so pale, the hair making feeble shadows. "I don't appreciate you talking to my son in this condition."

"I can't help it if he has your power to see the invisible," said Lee.

"You've been palming your medicine again, I guess."

"Mother checks my hands," said Lee. "She checks my mouth. And she watches me so I don't throw it up."

"Do you hate it that much?"

"It makes me feel like I'm moving through the world in a fog," said Lee. "When I don't take it, everything gets so sharp and clear. I can see forever. And my thoughts-I can think the thoughts of God. I don't have to sleep. I haven't slept in five days."

"I can believe it," said Step, noticing that if Lee was God, then God chewed gum. "Why are you here?"

"If you're really going to be my spokesman, then you have to be tested."

"I'm not going to be your spokesman, Lee. Where are your clothes?"

"Those are the robes of my captivity," he said. "I never had clothing."

"Yeah, well, they don't fit your mother."

"My mother likes you," said Lee. "She thinks you're really smart."

"How nice."

"But she says you don't like woman psychiatrists."

"She's mistaken," said Step.

"Oh, you don't have to pretend. I don't like them either. They're so bossy. And they don't understand what it's like. They've got their drugs to turn you into a robot, when you're just this close to seeing it all. To getting the whole picture."

The picture I need right now, thought Step, is how to get you safely back into your mother's care without endangering my family and preferably without bringing in the police. "We never get the whole picture in this life, Lee."

"I do," said Lee. "I see that you're planning to call my mother."

"Of course I am," said Step. "You need your medicine."

"Never again. I'm going to go seven days without sleeping and on the seventh day I'll come into my full power. It's sleep that dulls our minds, you know. I almost made it once before. I was driving along in that jet-black Z and I knew that all I had to do was just lean back to the right angle in my seat and I could fly anywhere. It was God in me. I wish I'd done it, Step. But the police wouldn't listen to me. The guy from the car lot must have called them. He didn't understand that it was my car now. I drove exactly fifty- five, so the policemen wouldn't stop me. But they have no respect for the law. They knew they had to stop me before I began to fly. They cut me off, about five or six police cars, and I got out of the car when they told me but they made me lie down on the road and the gravel got into my face and it really hurt." His voice went high at the end. A kind of whimper, a childlike cry. It made Step think of Howie Mandel's little-kid voice, small and high.

It was funny when Mandel did it.

"That was the time I was in the hospital. I told them, I can't stand to be confined. But they strapped me down anyway, it's this kind of straitjacket for when you're lying on the table. You can, like, lift one arm, but if you do, it tightens down the straps on all the others, including the one around your throat. So if you move your arms both at once you can choke yourself. And I kept thinking, what if I fall off the table? I'll strangle here and they won't do anything because they're jealous of me and they want me to die without ever coming into my power."

"I think they were trying to help you, Lee."

"It was killing me. So I started screaming, I don't like this, I don't like this, over and over but when the guy finally came in he just tightened it more so I couldn't even move one arm anymore and he said, We won't loosen this until you show us that you're in control of yourself, and I said How can I be in control of myself when you've tied me up? You've got to let me stand up, I won't go anywhere, I promise, and he says Yeah right. And then Mom got there and she had the medicine again but when she tried to give it to me I threw up right on her."

He laughed uproariously. Then stopped. "S he won't let me drive anymore. I had to walk all the way over here.

Look. My feet are bleeding."

It was true. When he sat down in the grass and held up his feet for inspection, Step could see even by the light from the porch that they were badly lacerated, with bits of gravel and road dirt ground into the wounds.

"That must hurt," said Step.

"I'm above pain," said Lee. "That's how I know I'm on the verge of my power. Pain means nothing to me. I could break you in half and you couldn't hurt me. I could break you up into pieces."

Step thought of Lee talking to Robbie in this condition and shuddered with retroactive dread.

"It's time for your test," said Lee. "To see if you're worthy to be my servant and accompany me into immortality."

Step could think of several ways to enter immortality, and he didn't want any of them to happen right now, least of all with Lee Weeks. "I don't intend to take any tests," said Step.

"Fine," said Lee. "But I'll bet you can't guess how I faked Mom out about the medicine."

Step said the first thing that came to mind. "You hid the pill in your chewing gum."

Lee cackled with glee. "That was the test! You passed it!"

"One question? The whole test?"

"That's it. I'm going to take you with me now." Lee scrambled to the hedge on all fours, and started searching for something. A gun? Step didn't intend to wait to find out.

"Wait a minute," said Step. "What about my test for you?"

"You don't test me," said Lee. "I'm God, you idiot."

"So you say," said Step. "Anybody can say that."

"But I'm invisible."

"Not to me."

"What's your test, then?" asked Lee.

"Let me go in and get it."

"Get what?"

"The test. It's an object, and you have to tell me where I got it. If you're God, you'll know."

"I already know what it is," said Lee. "God already knows what your whole test is. When I asked you, that was a joke."

"OK," said Step. "Wait there."

He unlocked the front door, went inside, and locked it behind him. He called Stevie's name as he headed for the phone. Dr. Weeks's number was ringing when Stevie got into the kitchen. "Go get me Robbie's ball. Tell Robbie I need it right now, and bring it to me."

Then Dr. Weeks answered.

"Are you looking for Lee?" asked Step.

"Is he there?"

"Naked and talking about taking me into immortality with him. He might have a gun."

"Lee isn't violent," she said.

"His feet are badly injured. I think you'll want an ambulance."

"We'll be right there. Don't let him leave." She hung up.

Stevie came back with the ball. Robbie had followed him. "Go back to Betsy's room, boys," said Step.

"Stay there and don't leave."

Back outside, the door locked behind him, Step held out the ball. "Do you recognize this?"

"I called it, and it came to me," said Lee. "I have called it again, and you have brought it unto me."

"How did I get this ball, Lee? If you're God, you'll know."

"You got it from Robbie, of course," said Lee.

"No, Robbie got it from me. It was a present. So I ask you again, how did I get this ball?"

Lee tried several answers, but as soon as he spoke, he immediately refused to let Step tell him whether he was right or not. "This is very hard," said Lee. "You have great powers, Brother Fletcher. You are able to conceal this knowledge from me."

The guessing game lasted until the ambulance and Dr. Weeks arrived ten minutes later.

"You tricked me, you bastard," said Lee.

"That was the test," said Step. "To know that the ball wasn't the test."

Lee's fury turned to disappointment. "Then I failed."

"You aren't God, Lee. You're just a nice kid with a serious problem."

Lee stood impassively as the men from the ambulance took him by the arms. Dr. Weeks came up to him, baring the needle of a syringe.

"Please don't, Mom," said Lee. "You'll ruin everything. It'll all be wasted."

"You need to sleep," said Dr. Weeks.

"I need to sleep with you," said Lee, laughing. "Isn't that what your precious Freud said? I need to kill Dad and sleep with you."

"How did you get off your medicine this time?"

"Step knows," said Lee.

"He hid it inside his chewing gum," said Step.

Lee looked crestfallen. "You told."

Dr. Weeks pushed the plunger down and Lee watched, fascinated, as the fluid went into his arm. "Is this the fast stuff?"

"Yes," said Dr. Weeks.

It was true. By the time they got him to the ambulance, Lee wasn't walking under his own power. They strapped him down inside. "Take him right in," Dr. Weeks told them. "They're expecting him. I'll be there very soon."

They drove off. Dr. Weeks stood there on the lawn, facing Step. "Thank you," she said.

"It must be hard," said Step. "Being a psychiatrist, and having a manic-depressive child."

"Lee is the reason I became a psychiatrist. So I could understand him."

"And do you?"

"No," she said. "Not when he's like this. Not even when he's not like this. I think he likes his madness better. I think he doesn't want to get well." She smiled wanly. "You don't like me, Mr. Fletcher."

"I think you should have warned us about Le e when he joined the Church."

"When one is alone and at wit's end," she said quietly, "one seizes upon even the tiniest hope."

"Did you think we could heal him?" asked Step, thinking of Sister LeSueur and wondering if she would think herself up to the job.

"No," she said. "But I thought, since you believed ... as you believe ... that God talks to human beings ... I thought you might accept him."

"We did," said Step. "As best we could."

"And I, too," said Dr. Weeks. "As best I can."

After she left, he rummaged through the hedge, looking for whatever it was that Lee had been reaching for.

It wasn't a weapon after all. It was the Book of Mormon that the missionaries had given him.

The autumn wore on, the routine changing but not in any important way. Jerusha brought along a physical therapist on her October visit, and he told Step that what he was doing, stretching out Zap's muscles and moving his limbs through their full range of motion, was not only good but essential. "It's like his brain doesn't have the normal connections to his muscles. When he shoots off a command, it does too much, which is why he kicks so hard, but then it disappears, just like that, and so he can't sustain anything. By himself he can't keep his limbs limber, so to speak. So you have to keep his tendons from tightening up on him. Same thing they do for coma patients."

"We'll have to do this for how long?" asked Step.

"Till he finds some alternate neural pathway to let him do it for himself. He will, you know. Just give him time."

It was encouraging, and now DeAnne and Step took turns twice a day, flexing and extending all of Zap's joints. Robbie and Stevie even picked up on it-Stevie silently, wordlessly doing exactly what he had seen Step and DeAnne do; Robbie far too rough and ne ver quite correctly, so that they had to insist that he only do "Zap bending" when they were there.

DeAnne's hardest job with Zap was bathing him. Zap didn't cry much-only when he was in real pain, which happened mostly when she fed him formula and he didn't burp enough. However, bathtime was torment for him. For some reason the water terrified him. Maybe, Step speculated, because gravity was the one constant, the one thing that felt in control in his life, and in the water the gravity just wasn't there the same way. DeAnne only answered, Maybe, but who can know? What mattered was that bathtime was the only time that Zap ever got really upset, and then he was frantic, and his desperate cries just tore DeAnne apart, because she couldn't help him feel better and yet she couldn't give up bathing him, either. Finally what she evolved was a song that she called "Tubby Time for Jeremy." It was completely absurd and the first time she realized Step was listening to her she blushed and stopped, but he insisted she teach him the words and he sang along with her, so she wasn't embarrassed anymore.

Tubby time in the city.

Tubby time in the town.

Tubby time for Jeremy, It's tubby time right now.

So Tubby-dub and scrubby-dub, It's time for your nightgown.

It's tubby time all over the world, So please don't frown.

As she explained to Step, the song didn't really help Zap at all. But it helped her,- it soothed her so she could endure his desperate sobbing and keep on bathing him without going to pieces inside.

Around the middle of October, Step and DeAnne both became aware that Stevie's behavior was changing just a little. He was no longer being quite as obedient as before. In fact, at times he seemed almost rebellious.

The rule in the house now was that no kid could go outside without one of the parents, and Stevie knew that-in fact, he had several times caught Betsy going out and brought her back in. But one day DeAnne came into the family room from the back of the house just as Stevie was coming inside through the back door.

"Stevie, what were you doing outside?"

"Looking," said Stevie.

"Good heavens, young man, you're filthy! Where have you been?"

"Under the house," he said.

She remembered the latticework skirt around the base of the house and immediately flashed back to her imagined picture of what it was like under there, all the bugs and webs and mud and filth. Having crickets come up through the closet last winter hadn't done anything to change that image in her mind, either. "That's just incredible!" she said. "You know what the rule is about going outside, and to think you pried open the latticework and went under the house, that's just unspeakable! I'm going to have Bappy come over and nail it all down. Now get into the laundry room and strip off your clothes while I get a bath running."

Later that night DeAnne and Step discussed what had happened, and they realized that because of Stevie's hard adjustment and their worry about these invisible friends of his, they had been slack with him. They may not have held him to a firm enough standard of discipline.

"But when you think about it, when would we have disciplined him?" asked Step. "I mean, till now he hasn't done anything wrong."

"Well, now he has, and I don't know what to do about it. I can't start deadbolting the back door and taking the key out because what if there was a fire? I can just see the headline: FAMILY HAD PLENTY OF TIME TO

ESCAPE BUT DEADBOLTS WERE ALL LOCKED AND KEYS COULD NOT BE FOUND IN TIME."

"They don't write headlines that long," said Step.

"Oh, good, so we'll die and no one will even know why."

"Less embarrassing that way."

"I think we need to show him that this is serious. I mean, there's a killer somewhere in Steuben, and Stevie's cutting out of the house without even telling us. Not to mention crawling under the house, I mean that's disgusting."

"Not really," said Step. "Not when you realize that my younger sister and my younger brothers used to eat dirt."

"Oh, gross!" cried DeAnne. "Did you have to tell me that?"

"They'd come into the house with flecks of mud all around their mouths and then try to act innocent when Mom said, 'Have you been eating dirt again?' And they'd open their mouths to say, 'No, Mom,' and the whole inside of their mouths was black with mud."

"I'm going to throw up, Step. I mean it."

"I'm just saying, kids like to mess in dirt. I always liked to dig in it, and maybe Stevie would like to, too, only there's just no place for it."

"It's a rental house. We can't just tear up a section of lawn for him."

"Oh," said Step. "That's what I was just about to suggest."

"And it's October, it's not going to get any warmer out there. And most important, that has nothing to do with him going out side in the first place without permission. He has to know we're serious."

"OK, so we confine him to the house."

"Step, that's not a normal life, being confined to the house. Besides, I want him outside."

"So we cut off his computer privileges. Tomorrow, no Atari."

"Oh, that really will hurt. He's always playing that Lode Runner game."

"Oh, he is? I've never seen him play it. I thought I was the only one who ever played it-I thought it had turned out to be a real lousy birthday gift for him."

"No, he plays it all the time. In fact, a couple of times I've thought that I'd really like it if you'd teach me how to run it."

"It's not hard. You just make sure there aren't any cartridges in the computer, put the disk into the drive, close the door, and turn the machine on."

"Right, that's easy for you and Stevie."

"Let's do it right now."

They went into the family room and Step showed her each thing to do and then he switched on the computer and the game came up and he said, "There it is. You just move the little guy with the joystick and try to get the treasures without the bad guys getting you."

"That's not Lode Runner," said DeAnne.

"Yes, it is," said Step.

"No, that's the little- man game that I saw you playing that time."

"Right, and the little-man game is called Lode Runner."

"No," she said.

Step popped open the disk drive and pulled out the disk and showed her. "Look! A miracle! The disk says Lode Runner, and yet what comes up is the little-man game!"

"No, I mean, of course you're right, I just thought that Lode Runner was a different game."

"What, then?"

"That one that Stevie always plays. The pirate ship game. It really looks beautiful sometimes, when they're just sailing along, the sails snapping in the wind. And the sailors climbing all over—I've never seen any other game like it. No offense, Step, but I kept thinking, If only Step could do a game that looked like that."

"Oh, no offense, right," said Step. He was a little miffed, but what mattered was that she, too, had seen the pirate ship game, only she saw it all the time, and she had watched it long enough to see different aspects of the game. "He must switch it off whenever I'm around," said Step. "I've never caught more than a glimpse of it."

"Oh, no, he plays it for hours," said DeAnne.

"In front of you?"

"Yes."

"Talking to his friends the whole time?"

"Well, yes," she said. "That's how I've picked up their names. Hearing what he says to them."

"Have you noticed what he does with the joystick when he's playing the game?"

"Oh, I think he moves it now and then, but it doesn't seem to be that kind of game."

"No, I'd say not," said Step. "Does he ever type anything? Ever use the keyboard? Or the paddle controllers?"

"Not that I remember," said DeAnne. "Why?"

"Only because if he's not doing anything with the joystick or the keyboard or anything, then how is it a game? What is he exactly doing?"

"Does he have to do anything?"

"DeAnne, if he causes things to happen onscreen, it's a game. If he doesn't, it's a movie."

"Well, people go to football games and watch them, and they never throw the ball or anything and it's still a game."

"Because there are human beings down on the field playing. But what human being is playing this pirate ship game? Not Stevie."

DeAnne frowned. "You know that I don't know anything about computers, really, except how to boot up your Altos and get Wordstar so I can do things for church."

"Take my word for it. The reason I've never programmed a game that had all that wonderful animation is because it can't be done."

"Well it can," said DeAnne. "I've seen it."

"There's only 48K of RAM in that machine, and the disk doesn't even have a hundred kilobytes on it. Three seconds of that ship sailing along with the sailors climbing all over the rigging would chew up every scrap of that memory. And yet the ship moves all over the screen, right?"

"Two ships, sometimes three," said DeAnne.

"And sometimes they're bigger or smaller?"

"They get big when they move closer, I guess."

"It can't be done. It certainly can't be done fast enough to be smooth animation."

"Well, I've seen it, Step, so don't tell me it can't be done just because you don't know how!"

Step held his tongue.

"This whole discussion is about how to let Stevie know we're serious about him going outside, remember?"

"Right."

"So we'll tell him that tomorrow he can't use the computer at all, OK?"

"OK."

It was not that simple after all. When they told Stevie this the next morning at breakfast, before he went to school, he looked positively stricken. "You can't," he said.

"Actually" said Step, "we can."

"Please," said Stevie. "I'll be good."

"We know that you're a good boy," said DeAnne. "But we have to help you understand how serious it is that you not go outside without permission."

"Please don't make me not use the computer." He was in tears. It had been months since Stevie had cried about anything.

"It's not like we're taking it away permanently," said Step.

"It's just for a day," said DeAnne.

"You can't," said Stevie.

"Why not?" asked Step.

Stevie slid his cereal bowl away, laid his head down on the table, and sobbed.

Step looked at DeAnne in consternation.

"Stevie," said DeAnne. "This reaction of yours actually worries me as much as your having broken the rule and gone outside. I had no idea you were so dependent on using the computer. I don't think that's healthy.

Maybe you need to stay away from the computer for a lot longer than a day."

At that, Stevie shoved his chair back and staggered into the corner of the kitchen near the window. He looked savagely, desperately angry. "You can't! That's the only thing they're staying for! If I can't play they'll go away!"

DeAnne and Step looked at each other, both reaching the same conclusion. Has it been that easy to get rid of the imaginary friends all along? Just turn off the computer?

"You've got no right!" Stevie screamed at them. "I've been trying so hard!"

Stevie's words were so strange that Step couldn't help but flash on his conversations with Lee during his madness. No, Step thought, rejecting the comparison. I just don't understand the context of what Stevie is saying. It'll be rational if I just understand the context.

"Calm down, Door Man," said Step. "Calm down, relax. Your mother didn't say that we were definitely going to take the computer away. But look at yourself. You're out of control. That's really pretty scary, and it makes us think maybe you've been spending way too much time on the Atari."

"Not as much as you spend on the IBM in there," said Stevie.

"That happens to be my work," said Step. "That happens to be what pays for our house and our food and for Zaps doctor bills."

"Are you the only one in the family who has work to do?" Stevie demanded.

The question took Step aback. "Why, do you have work to do?" he asked Stevie.

"Please don't make me stop playing the game. I'll never be bad again ever, please, please, please."

"Stevie, you weren't bad, you were just—"

"Then I'll never be whatever it was that I was, only don't make me stop playing with them, they'll go away and I'll never find them again. It was so hard to get them all together, it was so hard."

Suddenly a picture emerged in Step's mind. This game with the pirate ships had become, in Stevie's mind, the whole world of his imaginary friends. He used to play with them in the back yard, but it must have all moved indoors so that now he could only find them when he was playing with the computer. That meant that maybe Stevie wasn't hallucinating them anymore. Maybe the only time he could actually see them was when they were pixels moving on the screen, and he was afraid that if they slipped away any further, they'd be gone.

Well, wasn't that what Step and DeAnne wanted? They had thought that Stevie wasn't showing any progress, but without their even knowing it, he had stopped having hallucinations. It was gradually getting better by itself, and so they didn't need to push it, didn't need to force the issue. He had made up these boys to fit the names that were forced on him, to give them substance, and then he had built his whole life around them.

Let him outgrow them, as he was already starting to do. Let him gradually wean himself back to reality.

"How about this?" said Step. "Instead of cutting you off from the game, we put a time limit on it. If your homework's done and you've had your dinner and your bath and everything by seven- thirty, you can play until eight-thirty, and then no matter what the computer's off and you're in bed."

"Every day?" asked DeAnne. "That doesn't sound like much of a restriction to me."

"Why don't we talk about it ourselves later," said Step. "We'll start with an hour a day and go from there.

All right, Stevie?"

"Even today?" he asked.

"Today is still off- limits," said DeAnne.

"Why not say this," said Step. "No computer after school for sure, and then your mom and I will talk it over and decide about later tonight."

DeAnne looked at him, her face full of exasperation, but Step remained expressionless, insisting on holding her to the bargain that they never play good-parent, bad-parent in front of the children-though in fact he had just violated the bargain himself.

Actually, the bargain included an unspoken agreement that if one parent felt very, very strongly, the parent who felt less strongly about it would go along. And even though DeAnne clearly thought that she should have been given precedence, the very fact that Step had insisted anyway told her that maybe she should back off.

So she did.

In the meantime, Stevie had calmed down a lot, though his eyes were still red-rimmed, his face white.

"Do you think you can still go to school today?" asked Step.

He nodded.

"Stevie, have you made any friends at school this year?"

He shrugged.

"I mean, do the kids talk to you?"

He shrugged, then nodded.

"Stevie, do you ever have fun?"

Stevie just looked at him. "Sure," he finally said.

"I mean, besides with the computer?"

When Stevie didn't answer, DeAnne interrupted. "If we're going to get either of you boys to school on time, we've got to go now. And then your father and I are going to have a long discussion."

They had the discussion, but it wasn't rancorous. Step explained his thinking, DeAnne agreed with him, and they decided that limiting Stevie to an hour a day would help him taper off without giving him the stress of quitting the game and losing his friends all at once.

"The funniest thing," said DeAnne. "You know when he said, 'You're not the only one with work to do?' or whatever it was he said?"

"Yeah, I didn't know whether to be delighted to see him showing so much emotion or appalled that for the first time in his life he was yelling at his father."

"Do you know what went through my mind when he said that?" said DeAnne. "I thought, 'Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business?"'

Step just looked at her. And then said, "Do you know what that reminds me of?"

She shook her head.

"Lee Weeks," Step said. "First he thinks he's God, and then you think you're the virgin Mary."

"I wasn't joking."

"I was hoping you were," said Step.

"Maybe he's doing something really serious, Step. Maybe he's got a clearer vision of the world than we have. I mean, we already know that in some ways he does understand more than we do, and he always has."

"I know," said Step. "But we're talking about computer games here."

"We're talking about Stevie being aware of evil in the world. Have you forgotten that he knew the names?"

"The serial killer hasn't done anything since that article."

"But the boys he killed are still dead," said DeAnne. "And Stevie is still playing with imaginary friends that have their names. How do we know what is or is not important? When the boy Jesus stood there talking to the learned men in the temple, that was more important than Joseph's carpentry and more important than Mary's worry about him."

"Maybe you're right," said Step. "But nevertheless, Mary worried about him, and Joseph still kept doing his carpentry, because that was their job. And when they came and got Jesus from the temple, he went with them.

He didn't stand there and cry and scream at them. I mean, I know we believe in likening the scrip tures to ourselves, DeAnne, but it can be carried too far."

"You're right," she said. "I was just telling you what went through my mind."

The last phone call from Lee Weeks came on the twenty-sixth of October, a Wednesday night. It was the second day of the invasion of Grenada, and Step had stopped working the whole day, watching the news. At one in the morning Step was still up, sitting in the family room flipping the TV back and forth between news broadcasts and stupid old movies. When the phone rang Step thought either someone had died or someone in Utah was calling and had forgotten the time difference again.

"The war is on," said Lee.

"Hi, Lee," said Step.

"I saved the quarter you sent me. I picked it up from the sidewalk where you left it."

Please, thought Step. Please just don't call me again.

"They saw me pick something up on my walk, and they strip-searched me, but I swallowed it."

"You swallowed a quarter?"

"I knew I'd get it back, and when I did, I'd call you. I found it on the day they blew up the U.S. Marines. I knew that God was through with the world, and then you sent me the quarter and I thought, I am prepared. And now when war is raging over the face of the earth, I got the quarter back."

"Where are you calling me from?" asked Step.

"The payphone in the waiting area. I don't have long to talk, because the attendants will find out I'm not in bed pretty soon. That's why you'll have to act quickly. Is the submarine ready?"

"Lee, I don't have a submarine."

"No!" he shouted. "No! No!"

Step almost shushed him, but then he realized, if Lee is in an institution somewhere and he's hiding, having him yell into the phone will help them find him.

After a moment, though, Lee stopped shouting. "She put me here," he said. "But God is getting impatient.

He is tired of the way I keep falling asleep, but I can't help it. I can't help it." He started to cry.

"Lee, it's all right, really. Everything's going to be all right."

"Step, you're my only friend. You're the only one who ever understood the glorious being inside my humble body."

"That's still true, Lee. You're trapped inside a body that isn't working right. It keeps giving you a distorted version of reality."

"I tried to see the truth," said Lee. "But I didn't see enough, did I? I didn't measure up. So you're going to leave without me, and I'll be here for the day after. But I'm not afraid. I'd rather die than live on, knowing that I didn't have what it took to he saved."

"Lee, you didn't fail a test. You just have to take the medication they give you."

"That's what you have to say to the ones who fail. I understand that, Step. You could have burned me up when you saw how weak I was. But I'm not as weak as they think. I got even with them. This is so beautiful, you're going to love this! You want to know what I did?"

"Sure," said Step.

"I didn't wash the quarter." Lee burst out laughing, long and hard. "I didn't ... wash ... the quarter!"

There was a flurry of noises. Lee stopped laughing and said, quite cheerily, "Ta-ta for now!"

The line went dead.