Spoonbenders

Buddy is five years old and Mom is alive. There she is, so tall, holding his hand, looking down at him with blue eyes. Her silver dress sparkles in the stage lights like magic. “We’re on TV, Buddy,” she says. But it doesn’t seem like TV at all. It’s just like being onstage at all the theaters they’ve been performing at. There’s even an audience. There shouldn’t be an audience for TV, should there?

Mom says, “When Mr. Douglas comes over, you can do your spinner trick.” The Wonder Wheel has spokes that make a clackety sound, and on each wedge of the wheel is a different picture: duck, clown, fire truck. People applaud every time it stops on the picture he’s predicted, and that’s almost every time. His favorite part is starting the wheel spinning, not saying where it will land.

He’s getting ready to spin the wheel when a memory hits him like a slap to his head. He remembers his sister holding his hand while they stand at the edge of a grave, looking at a coffin. Their mother’s coffin. Suddenly the gleaming box drops into the hole, too fast, and people shout. There in the TV studio, Buddy cries out with them, a wordless shout of fear.

Mom says, “Buddy! Buddy!” She crouches down, and tells him not to be scared. But of course he’s scared, because all the memories are coming now, in a rolling wave: Astounding Archibald walking out onstage, calling them fakes. But Mom isn’t there to perform the showstopper trick, and because of that she ends up in a coffin.

Mom, alive, says, “Can you put away your tears?”

He can’t, because the memories are still coming, and now he’s remembering the night, months from now, when Mom falls in the kitchen and hurts her head. He remembers the medal she hangs around his neck. And he remembers dressing up to go see her in the hospital, and then the coffin falling, and Irene squeezing his hand.

The memories come that fast, bam bam bam, from Astounding Archibald’s dramatic entrance to the casket disappearing into the dark. If one thing happens they all happen.

Five-year-old Buddy doesn’t know how to make his mother’s death not be true. What can he do at this size, at this age? He has memories of being big, tall enough to look down on Frankie, to loom over his father, and he wants to be that huge man right now. He could stop crying, and the future could be different.

“Jesus Christ,” Teddy hisses. They’re in commercial. Dad doesn’t know it, but Astounding Archibald is about to walk onstage, and Mom is going to die. Buddy collapses onto the floor, and the man wearing a headset steps back in surprise. “Get him out of here,” Dad says.

Buddy’s worked himself into a blubbery, boneless state. He can only think of the hole in the ground, swallowing his mother. She carries Buddy out on her hip, and he doesn’t release her even after they reach the greenroom. He’s still crying, unable to stop.

He hasn’t learned to invent stories yet. If he were older, if he were smarter, he could find some clever way to explain the coffin and keep his mother alive. But he’s too afraid, and his body is not in his control. He’s failed.

Buddy’s twenty-seven years old but he feels older. Much older. Or maybe he’s just hungry.

He makes a baloney sandwich and eats it standing up at the sink, then washes it down with a tall glass of Carnation Instant Breakfast. He loves that chalky residue in his throat. A whole meal in a glass! Perfect for the precog who has to keep up his strength.

He likes it when the house is empty like this, Irene at work and Matty out with Frankie, and Dad—well, not even the World’s Most Powerful Psychic knows what Dad does with his time. He only remembers what he’s around for. Not like Mom, who seemed to know everything, everywhere. There was a reason she was the titleholder for so long. Yes, he feels like a fraud some days, or a next-best-thing champion, like Scottie Pippen after Michael Jordan retired, or Timothy Dalton. He does what he can with the talent he possesses.

Sometimes, though, it’s as if the talent possesses him. For example, he’s just remembered taking a walk around the neighborhood with Miss Poppins, a walk that was to start in five minutes. Theoretically he could try to ignore the memory and stay home, but he can’t risk it. Everything may be connected to the Zap, even walking a dog. Or stealing a newspaper. The other day he suddenly remembered stealing a Chicago Tribune from a neighbor’s porch. Not only that, but he had a distinct memory of circling a headline in black marker and then placing the newspaper where his father would see it. Why a Tribune? Why that article? He still doesn’t know. Soldiers do not have to understand their orders.

Besides, he sometimes likes what destiny has ordered him to do. He certainly likes walking with Miss Poppins. Staying home would be cutting off his nose to spite his future face. And why? To preserve some illusion of free will? Nonsense. Duty eats free will for breakfast.