Socket 1-3 - The Socket Greeny Saga (74 page)

I AM NOT YOU.

He licked his lips, and then clarity settled
in. He smiled. “Sure, um, yeah. I’m all right.”

His mother smiled, then looked at me.
“What’s your name?”

“My name is Socket.”

“You want to stay for dinner, Socket?”

Scott watched her invite me, then waited for
an answer. Like his mother, he was cleared-eyed and settled. They
accepted the new reality.

“That’s very kind of you,” I said.

“Very nice.” She started for the kitchen.
Scott nodded with a sly smile. I paused at the pictures, gazed once
more at the Grand Canyon, recognized the smile looking back.

Like one of the family.

L E G E N D

A Big Bang

There were two dogs in the backyard. They’d
dug holes near a shed, white paint peeling from the walls, and
looked half dead in the shade. I sensed their exhaustion and dreamy
thoughts, their legs twitching in a long afternoon nap. Beyond that
a pasture was enclosed by an old wooden fence and three horses
grazed at the back of the property. Stables were on the other side
of the shed and a smaller fenced area with chickens and goats
inside.

I was surprised by my level of comfort. My
world was standing on its head, but here, inside this house, I
didn’t feel like an alien. I felt like I was home, like I’d know
these people all my life.

Maddi was slopping a spoonful of spaghetti
sauce over a mountain of noodles, her eyes big and hungry. Scott
was at the table, waiting for the rest of the family. Their mother
was near the sink, filling a plastic cup with apple juice.

“What would you like to drink, Socket?” she
asked.

“Sweet tea?”

“What’s sweet tea?” Maddi asked.

“Um, it’s tea with sugar.”

“Well, then why don’t you just add
sugar?”

“I can do that,” I said.

Her mother put a tall glass of tea at the
table setting next to Scott, along with a bowl of sugar. “Go ahead,
Socket, help yourself to some food.”

There was no need to eat. I had no appetite.
But I got myself a small helping, savoring the scent of homemade
sauce. It wasn’t so much the spices and tomato sauce that I
savored, but the effort that went into making it. The entire house
had a special energy, one that was lived-in, the intermingling of a
family essence that wove tightly through the walls.

They were waiting for me to sit. Maddi
already had noodles spun on her fork. As soon as my butt hit the
chair, they were in her mouth. The meal began. There was another
setting at the head of the table, like someone else was coming but
not until later.

Things were spinning, like I was the one in
an alternate reality, eating next to my identical twin. It could be
easy to forget I didn’t belong. Easy to believe I didn’t really
exist, but I let myself believe it. For the moment, I belonged.

There was nothing but the sound of knives on
plates and spinning forks. Scott ate without issue. Maddi was
moaning with each bite, eyeballing me. I slowly cut the noodles and
pushed the food around. I wasn’t fooling her, so I took a bite.

“You know, it’s kind of weird that Scott’s
friend is eating with us,” Maddi said. “I mean, we just met
him.”

“Mind your manners, dear,” the mother
said.

“I’m just
saaaaaying
…” she sang.

The mother stopped chewing and glared. Maddi
slurped a noodle into her mouth like a worm running for cover. I
smiled at her and she laughed, splashing sauce all over her
lips.

“Where are you from, Socket?” the mother
asked.

“South Carolina.”

“I thought you sounded a bit Southern.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Is Socket a southern name?” Maddi
asked.

“I don’t believe so.”

“Well, if you were born there, why don’t you
have a Southern name?”

Because I wasn’t born.
I
shrugged.

“You know what your name sounds like?” Maddi
said. “Like Scott’s name.”

Her mother stopped chewing and thought about
it. “Oh, yes, you’re right, Maddi. It does sound like it.”

I frowned, thinking also, but coming up
blank. “Ma’am?”

“Scott Teck,” she said. “Sock-et.”

And there you go. Mystery solved over a
plate of spaghetti. My name was an aberration of my original, a
scrambling of sounds and letters. Perhaps I wasn’t a weapon after
all. Just a reflection.

“Isn’t that odd, Scott?” the mother
said.

He looked at me, taking another bite,
nodding. I looked away, but not too quickly. I couldn’t look into
his eyes, it started the magnetic pull in my stomach, and each time
it got stronger. I was able to resist, as long as I wasn’t looking
at him. Fortunately, he was more interested in eating.

“What’s your middle name?” the mother
asked.

“Pablo.”

“Oh, my gosh!” Maddi clapped and pointed at
Scott. “Tell him your middle name, Scott. Tell him! Tell him!”

He hovered over his plate, noodles dangling,
shaking his head.

“Scott doesn’t like his middle name,” the
mother said.

“Can I tell him, Mama?” Maddi asked,
bouncing. “Can I? Can I?”

“Picasso,” Scott said. “My middle name is
Picasso, isn’t that awesome?”

Maddi slumped in her chair, about as much as
I did. Pablo Picasso, one of humanity’s most celebrated artists, a
well-spring of creativity, the essence of being human. Would Pablo
be whole without Picasso? Could something be creative if it was
separated at birth?

And the hits just keep on coming.

“What’s your project about?” the mother
asked.

“Ma’am?”

“The school project?”

There was a moment when the family looked at
each other, a moment where the new reality faltered and a stranger
was sitting at the table. I got out of my thoughts and focused.
“Project, oh, yeah,” I said. “It’s a sociology project. We’re
supposed to, uh, interview each other about family. You know, your
parents and grandparents, where you were born, that sort of
thing.”

“That sounds interesting,” she said. “You
didn’t tell me about this project, Scotty.”

He shrugged, mouth full.

“We’re
adooopted
.” Maddi hunched over
her plate with a devious smile, not asking for permission to give
the answer this time. Her mother told her to pay attention to
dinner and Maddi looked at me from the corners of her eyes, her
feet thumping on her chair.

The back door in the pantry closed and the
father marched into the kitchen. “Sorry, guys. My meeting ran
late.” He hung his keys on a rack next to the doorframe and went
directly to the stove. While he shoveled food onto his plate, he
looked out the window over the sink. “Mary Ellen? Did someone let
the chickens out?”

“Oh, the gate must not have got closed,” the
mother said. “Maddi, can you get them?”

“I got to do everything.” She dropped her
fork on the plate.

“That’s because you’re Cinderella, honey.”
She whacked her on the fanny as she went out the back door. “How
was the meeting, Joey?”

“You know meetings.” The father sat down and
started eating, saying with food in his mouth, “Who’s our
guest?”

The mother looked at Scott. He wiped his
mouth. “Oh, he’s a friend from school. Stopped by to work on a…
project, I think. Um, his name is Socket.”

Joey’s arms were tan and hairy. The fatherly
essence was rich and powerful. The energy in the room changed with
his presence. It was stronger and tighter, enveloped the whole
house. With him at the table, the family was complete. I was whole
and unbroken.

“Have I met you?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“So, what kind of name is Socket?”

Maddi and the mother told him about my name
and how it sounded like Scott Teck, and the father nodded and
listened and laughed. Maddi told their father about the South and
how they were learning about the Civil War at school and Scott got
up to get more food. Fortunately, no one paid attention that my
plate had hardly been touched, how I expertly scattered the food
like I’d eaten as much as I could. Instead, I sat back and
experienced the flow. The conversation soon turned to Maddi’s
classmate that threw up at recess and Scott’s ex-girlfriend working
at the grocery store and their mother’s appointment at the church.
The sorts of things families talk about at dinner, I suppose.

And I was there, right in the middle of it
all.

Maddi had cleared off the table and piled
the dishes in the sink, then went into the backyard with her
parents. Scott filled the sink with soapy water and stacked the
dishes on the counter.

“Dishwasher broke?” I asked.

“You’re looking at the dishwasher.” He threw
a dishtowel over his shoulder.

“I’ll wash, if you dry,” I said.

“Deal.” He shifted to the left side of the
sink. I stepped in his place and sunk my hands into the warm soapy
water, grabbed a plate and rubbed it clean with a soft sponge.
Scott rinsed and dried and put it in the cabinet.

It was getting near dark outside. Our
reflections were clear in the window that looked into the side
yard. Mary Ellen and Joey were sitting in fray lawn chairs watching
Maddi throw a slimy ball to the dogs. Scott hardly looked up,
focused on the dishes coming his way. We were in sync, a washing
tandem. Identical twins, the difference only in the color of hair.
Why the white hair? Was it an error in the cloning, or a hint at
my transparency?

How many times had I washed dishes, all
alone, not knowing
I
was washing dishes somewhere else in
the world? And now we were linked, our energy coupled like trains.
His strength was growing, absorbing my own like I was doing to
others, yet I couldn’t tell if he could feel it. He didn’t appear
to be aware of anything other than the dishes and warm water, yet I
experienced him as a massive star whose gravitational pull locked
onto me, unable to free myself. It was only a matter of time before
I was swallowed. I wasn’t sad about that. Wasn’t anything. It
seemed that’s the way things were supposed to be.

Maddi’s laughter drifted through the window
and the dogs barked. And I washed another bowl. Scott rinsed. For
once, I wasn’t saving the world. Maybe it was saving me.

Scott went to his room, upstairs to the
left.
This is Scott’s Room
was on the door. The walls were
covered with pictures, mostly hard-edge bands in concert. He was at
the desk, flipping the pages on a skateboard magazine with the
likes of Josiah Gatlyn grinding a handrail and Benny Fairfax
nailing something impossible.

“I can’t wait until I’m done with school,”
he said.

“Where you going?”

“Anywhere but here.” He turned the page.

It was completely dark outside. The lawn
chairs were empty. It took everything I had to stand three feet
away from Scott. The draw was undeniable. I was leaning away from
him.

But it was no longer to be denied.

“I got to go,” I said.

“What about the project?”

I turned, looked into his face.
My
face.
My
eyes. “It’s just about done.”

I stopped resisting, let go of the energy
bundled in my stomach. It flowed like Hoover dam had tumbled. The
influx hit him in the gut. He convulsed like he was about to puke.
His skin was quaking. He was draining me.

“What’s… what’s happening?” He couldn’t get
up, couldn’t get away. He had to sit, to claim what was rightfully
his. I was only his shadow, his reflection, and I had so much to
give.

As the darkness crept over me, I extended my
hand to shake. “Take it,” I said.

His head was shaking.

But he wasn’t looking at my hand, he was
seeing my face. I could not pretend anymore. He saw my true nature,
saw his own face looking back. Even if I wasn’t real, if I was just
a reflection, I was grateful to have had the opportunity to exist.
To feel. To love. I didn’t know what would happen when it was over,
where I would go or what I would become. There was only this
moment. And it had reached an end.

“Go on,” I said. “It’s all right.”

Reality was breaking up, his mind began to
quiver. But he held onto consciousness, not able to comprehend the
impossible moment that appeared out of an ordinary day, his own
self standing in his bedroom, reaching out.

His hand moved slowly. Darkness was taking
my vision as it moved toward my open palm, as if I was dissolving
from the physical world. As if I was returning to the great void of
the moment. I did not see him take my hand. I did not feel his
sweaty palm grip mine.

But I knew when it did.

It was an explosion.

My mind expanded like the Big Bang,
scattered in all directions, through all the elements in a painless
flight.

I did not see. Did not smell. But I was
aware. Felt my life drain away from my body, through my hand and
into Scott. He absorbed what was rightfully his. He was the
original face. My memories would be his. My life was his.

He would remember my father holding his hand
at the fair, how he ate dinner with my mother, watched them bury my
father, and the endless fights in South Carolina. How he fell in
love with Chute. Every moment filled him, became his memories. It
was his life, now.

And when I was empty, his memories began to
leak into my awareness. I saw Scott’s life, from the very
beginning. I experienced memories, both conscious and subconscious,
of his life from the very first breath he took. Felt his body slide
from my mother’s womb, the expansion of his chest and the blurry
face of my mother hovered over him, her fulfilling nipple in his
mouth and the warm embrace of my father.

And I felt the cold fate of his reality.

He was swept away, cuddled in a warm blanket
that was no substitute for the woman who gave birth to him. He was
too young to know that a blind man had plans for him, for all of
us. Pivot took him far away where he was adopted by a warm and
loving family.