TOUCH
Chapter 16 of Senses
"Come on in, Jim," Karen said.
It had taken nearly eight weeks worth of work and negotiation, but Karen finally received approval for Jim to meet her new patient. There had been considerable discussion over Jim's merits, and Karen's judgment was ruled invalid due to personal bias. Jim had finally spoken with Karen's superiors personally about the idea, and it was there he won the case.
Jim entered Karen's office and gave Karen a kiss before sitting in a corner chair. Karen had been seated in the other.
"Hello there," Jim said, checking his watch. "I'm early, aren't I?"
"It's okay," Karen replied. "I wanted to talk to you first anyway."
"About?"
"Conducting yourself. Remember you're dealing with a young child. A troubled young child. Watch your language."
"Yes, ma'am," Jim chuckled. "Tell me about him."
"His name is Timmy Johnston. He's eleven years old, and quite bright. Did very well in school until about four months ago, when there was a baseball game at his school. There were an odd number of kids, and Timmy was excluded from the game. He hasn't spoken since."
"Drastic reaction," Jim said.
"The father's a sports nut, and it appears that he compounded the error. I don't know how just yet, but I'm working on it."
"Does he respond to anything?"
"Oh yes. He hears and understands just fine. He even likes to write, and he always plays music on his home stereo. He even brings in a walkman and plays it during our sessions. That's a big reason as to why you're here. He knows you."
"But he doesn't speak."
"No, he doesn't. I've tried all kinds of things to get him going, but nothing. I can't sing, so I haven't tried that."
"You want me to, I take it?"
"Very good, Jim. Very good."
"You have anything in mind, Doctor?"
Karen smiled. "Just be yourself, kiddo. I'm not worried about it."
Jim laughed. "I get to improvise, huh? Fabulous! I always like doing that."
"You'll do fine."
Jim nodded. "I hope so. I haven't dealt with someone this kid's age since I was sixteen."
"A.J.?" Karen asked.
"Yes. I have fond memories of that time. He was shorter than me then, although not by much."
"How's he doing? I haven't seen him in a while."
"Neither have I. I talked to him once at Larry's place about two weeks ago, but I didn't get much out of him. He's pretty obsessed with this universal empathy concept."
"It was a good observation on your part," Karen said. "Even I hadn't noticed it."
"How could you?" Jim asked. "You always notice emotion anyway, after all. Most of us don't. I don't think I would have figured it out without having met you first, though."
Karen almost blushed. "Thank you, I think. Glad to know I helped."
"We should be thanking you. You've given us a lot of insight as to how the mind works."
"It's really a shame you can't publish."
"Even forgetting that no one would believe it at first, A.J. and I would have to go into seclusion. We already get too much press.
"Still, it would be nice to be recognized by the scientific community. I got those unrecognized Nobel Prize blues."
"Sounds like one of your more intellectual songs," Karen quipped.
Jim was about to respond when Karen's intercom buzzed. Karen answered, saying, "Yes?"
"Mr. Johnston here to see you."
Karen nodded. "Good," she said. "Send him on back."
Jim looked at Karen questioningly. "Mr. Johnston?"
"Timmy. My receptionist likes to make them feel like adults."
Jim nodded. "Oh."
There was a knock on the door to Karen's office. "Come in," she said.
The door opened to admit an eleven year old boy with short blond hair, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. He also wore a stereo walkman that was playing loud enough to be heard in the room. The boy nodded at Karen and sat on the far couch. He didn't even glance at Jim.
"Timmy," Karen said. The boy looked up. "I have someone for you to meet."
Timmy looked down again.
Jim chuckled. "I wouldn't listen either," he said. "You're competing with Mark Knopfler there."
Timmy looked up at Jim, startled.
"'The Man's Too Strong', right?"
Timmy nodded, with a slight smile on his face.
"Good tune, isn't it? I did a concert in England where I played that tune. He was in the audience, it turned out, and came up to play the guitar for it. I was touched."
Timmy turned off his tape machine, giving his full attention to Jim.
"It was almost embarrassing. Mark Knopfler is a much better guitarist than I am. Hell, he's one of the best alive. Oops, I shouldn't swear, should I?" He put his hand on his mouth and looked abashed at Karen. Timmy smiled.
"Anyway," Jim continued, "do you know how to play guitar?"
Timmy shook his head.
"Well, to play real fast like Jimi Hendrix did or Yngue Malmsteen does, you need a pick. Mark Knopfler doesn't use one. You know the solo to 'Sultans of Swing'?"
Timmy looked enthralled.
"No guitar pick! Most of us either can't or don't do that. I don't."
Timmy pointed at Jim, looking surprised.
"Hey, it's true! I'm not even a real guitarist! I've never had a lesson. I'm really a pianist, you know. Honest!"
Timmy shook his head. He played an imaginary piano, then pointed at Jim. Jim in turn repeated the gesture.
"That's right, piano. I never even picked up a guitar until I was sixteen years old. Taught myself how to play by playing along with my records. Now, this was before compact discs came along and CD players with all their repeat functions, so I went through a lot of records learning how to play. I spent all my time at it - no girls, so sports, no free time, no school. Well, a little school."
Timmy had stopped smiling. He pantomimed hitting a baseball.
"Do you like baseball?" Jim asked.
Timmy didn't move.
"Can you keep a secret? I don't."
Timmy looked up, startled.
"Hey, not everybody does. I can't play the game. I traded athletics for music early on. Besides, baseball is boring."
Jim stood up. "Have you ever just listened to a baseball game?" he asked.
Timmy nodded.
"Then this is old hat to you. Close your eyes. Got them closed? Real tight? Good.
"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's a beautiful day here at the stadium. The sun is hot and there's a cool breeze as we prepare for today's game.
"What have you learned so far? 'It's a beautiful day at the stadium' - have you ever seen a bathroom at a ballpark? Gross! 'The sun is hot' - very true. It always is. 'There's a cool breeze' - very good, thank you for the weather report.
"Today's contest is between two teams who have played before. Today's starting pitchers are the man from Mexico and the man from Puerto Rico. The home team will be defending the field from the visitors.
"'The two teams have played before' - considering how long the teams have been around, I'd hope so. 'The pitchers are the man from Mexico and the man from Puerto Rico' - not bad for the great American pastime, eh? And if the other team doesn't get on to the field at some point, the game can't even be played.
"Now then, onto the game itself. There's the pitch..."
Jim paused and looked at the smiling boy, not moving or making a sound for nearly thirty seconds.
"There's another pitch..."
Jim paused again.
"There's another pitch! Stick around folks, we only have another four hours of this stuff to go!"
Timmy laughed out loud.
"You see?" Jim said. "What's so great about baseball? Absolutely nothing."
Timmy laughed a while longer, then spoke. "Jim," he said. "Your name is Jim."
Jim laughed. "Absolutely, my little friend, absolutely. You like Star Trek, I see."
Timmy smiled. "You know it."
"How many of the episodes have you seen?"
"About fifty. Not all. There are seventy-two episodes, after all."
"That's right, and I've got them all on video cassette."
Timmy's eyes widened.
"Hey Tim," Jim said, "I've been a Trekker since 1969. Anytime you want to come see them, we'll arrange it."
Timmy stopped smiling. "I'll have to ask my dad," he said.
Jim looked at Timmy with a conspiratorial look on his face. "It can be arranged. I'd be more worried about her." Jim shot a look at Karen.
Karen held her hands up. "Hey," she protested, "Star Trek's fine with me. Timmy, why don't you go get your father and we'll arrange it?"
Timmy nodded and went out of the room, leaving his walkman behind.
Karen looked at Jim, bewildered. "That was amazing," she said.
"Told you I was good at improvisation," Jim replied. "Has anyone ever told him it's okay not to like sports?"
"I don't think it was that."
"How so?"
"You didn't try to get him to talk. You just treated it like it was okay not to talk. I think that's what broke the ice."
Jim looked surprised. "I did that?"
"You're good with kids, Jim."
"Scary thought, lover." Jim clapped his hands together, as Timmy and his father entered the room.
"Well Tim," Jim said, "when will you and your dad be up for a Star Trek marathon? Say we do that instead of meet here next week?"
When Jim returned home, the first thing he did was check his answering machine, which had only one message.
"Hey big bro'! I'm back in town and at home, with good news. I got it!"
Jim called A.J. immediately. "You've got empathy figured out?" he asked.
"That's right," A.J. replied. "Come on over. First experiment's about to begin!"
"On my way!"
When Jim entered A.J.'s gym he was so unprepared for what he found that he fell. And bounced. Gone was the foam padding Jim was familiar with; it had been replaced by canvas.
"What the hell is this?" Jim asked, bouncing lightly on the floor.
"Trampolining," A.J. replied from his perch in the center of the room. "The idea was Larry's. Because we do so much volatile work these days, he thought it best to have a surrounding we can bounce off of. The gossip papers will say I'm weird, but they do anyway."
A.J. released his hold on gravity and fell ten feet to the floor, on his back. He bounced on the floor then rebounded to his previous height, where he reasserted his control on gravity. "See?" he said. "Not even fazed by a ten foot fall."
"What about the walls?" Jim asked.
"Same idea, but they're looser. They've also got about five feet of give because of the distance across the room. I had the ceiling done that way also, to that I could get the light fixtures in."
"But not the wall with the door."
"I haven't figured out how to do the trampolining with a door in it yet, so I've just left the old foam padding. Don't worry, that will change."
Jim walked to the center of the room. "Not bad A.J., not bad. What about all your exercise gear?"
"I'm having a separate workout gym added on to the house."
"Shit! You're adding on to the place?"
A.J. laughed. "Absolutely! I've got my eccentric rock star image to live up to, after all. Come on up!"
Jim floated up to A.J.'s level, ten feet above the floor. "May I?" he asked. When A.J. nodded, Jim released gravity, falling feet first to the floor. He landed, bouncing into a back flip and landing again on his back, then bouncing up to ten feet again and holding.
Jim smiled. "That's fun! I'll have to come here more often just to bounce around."
"Believe it or not," A.J. said, "it's also good exercise. I've been in here almost constantly since it was finished."
"When was that?" Jim asked.
"Yesterday afternoon. Hired some contractors a couple of weeks ago. Have you any idea how heavy these canvasses are?"
"Must be a lot, considering the size of the room." Jim looked at his brother. "A.J., you're going to drive me fucking nuts."
"How so?"
"How did you crack empathy!" Jim yelled.
A.J. smiled. "I'm glad you asked that," he said, "because I really want to tell you."
Jim folded his legs under him, lotus style and said, "All right Professor Christopher, let the education begin."
A.J. nodded curtly. "Well," he began, "what Larry and I did was look for matching equations in varied emotional responses. Once we found that we needed to isolate the specific equation for empathic projection. That was the hard part, because the math is unrecognizable."
Jim raised an eyebrow. "Unrecognizable?" he asked.
"It looks something like fractal mathematics, but it's not quite fractal. It's beyond me. It's even beyond Larry. I'd like a world class mathematician and a world class physicist to interpret the equations given the knowns, but obviously that can't be done.
"Of course, I don't need to know how it works to make it work. I just need the formula, and that I've got. It took a while to get, though. Have you any idea the number of chemical reactions that take place in the cerebrum and cerebellum every second? There's a reason I can't make out every equation."
"I'll grant you that," Jim said. "So what's the equation, big guy?"
"It's long and complex. I've got it stored in my computer in the den. Let's do the experiment and I'll show you the documentation. You see, knowing the formula isn't enough - you need to know where in the brain to send it. I want to try my experiment first, just to see if I'm blowing off steam or not."
"You're not certain then," Jim responded.
"No."
"Taking it cautiously there, A.J. That's not like you."
"Larry's been talking some common sense to me. There's a very high probability that I even listened."
"This is a new A.J. we're seeing here."
A.J. laughed quietly. "Yeah," he said, "maybe I'm starting to act my age. I'm getting a bit serious these days."
"Recent events?" Jim asked.
"Probably."
"Come on A.J., you're still a kid. Shit, you're only 22. I hadn't even had my first record contract at your age."
"Stop complaining. I've been around the world, seen death first hand, and made enough money to last the next hundred years. I've even got a serious girlfriend."
Jim looked surprised. "Carrie?" he asked.
A.J. grinned. "Hey, give me a break. I like her. She even came up to San Francisco with me."
"And she still doesn't know?"
"She thinks I like to help Larry tinker around with physics. It was an easy cover to keep."
Jim laughed. "Serious about her my ass. That's a big lie, A.J."
"Give me a fucking break."
"The talent's an integral part of our lives. You can't ignore it. You decide to make the next big step then she'll have to know."
"Jim, let me ask you something. If your relationship with Karen had been normal, and if she wasn't an empath, would have told her?"
Jim thought about it for a moment. "You know," he finally said, "I probably wouldn't have."
"So fuck off!"
"All right, all right, I'll go fuck off. What's the experiment?"
A.J. floated back and down, until he was ten feet away from Jim. "The procedure is this," he said. "You keep your own gravity at effective null. I'm going to the floor, from where I will attempt to float you to me." A.J. let himself drop to the canvass.
"Sounds fine to me," Jim said.
"Keep your eyes open for everything. I'm probably going to lose speech, so help me keep track of everything."
"Let's do it."
A.J. closed his eyes to concentrate of the formulae. After ten seconds he opened his eyes and looked directly at Jim. The eyes were savage, but A.J. was smiling.
Jim noticed he was floating towards A.J. The progress was slow, but he moved.
"All right A.J.!" Jim shouted. "It works!"
Jim continued to float down towards A.J., who hadn't moved or changed expression. It became apparent to Jim that A.J. was going to bring him directly to A.J.'s location.
Jim and A.J. had never fought as children, having gone through their entire lives without even pushing each other in anger. Therefore when A.J. lunged at Jim when he was only four feet away Jim was caught completely off guard. A.J. pushed Jim towards the ceiling, and Jim floated up quickly, forgetting to reassert gravity.
Jim was still trying to recover from the shock of his
brother pushing him when his head struck the ceiling light fixture. He lost
consciousness and fell twenty feet to the canvass floor.