“I changed,” I admitted. “For the better, I’d like to think. And I guess Gideon didn’t think of it when he asked me, but going back there today brought all sorts of shit rushing back to me. I don’t know if I can continue doing his business for him.”
We had to whisper because Nana was sleeping in one of our bedrooms. Deloy was off on a Bountiful run. I’d gotten up at one in the morning, unable to sleep. I’d put a bottle of Jim Beam in the kitchen, so I padded out shirtless to pour a few fingers. Oaklyn had wandered out too in a powder pink satin robe that made her look like an innocent angel. She wanted a few fingers, too, so we’d put on jackets to go onto the back deck, me a black leather one, and her a fake furry thing that rendered her absolutely luminous.
“Oh, jeez,” she said, “I didn’t think about that. Have you had any contact with your mom or dad? They obviously did nothing about your Nana’s condition.”
Oaklyn’s Dr. Lee had diagnosed multiple conditions for Nana in addition to her diabetes. It had caused advanced nerve damage to the point where she couldn’t feel her feet. Foot ulcers were so bad that another week without treatment would’ve meant amputation. He’d also tested her for pulmonary lung disease and a bunch of cardio stuff. He was already recommending she be put into assisted living, and some of the tests hadn’t even come back yet.
Nana had been suffering for who knew how long. I didn’t want to think what might’ve happened if I hadn’t decided to take a spin down to Avalanche and rent out a martial arts studio. And obviously not one of my eleven plus siblings had lifted a finger for her. They were all brainwashed Morbots, programmed to the core.
“Nothing. They were party to my excommunication, so I want nothing to do with them. Some still have a little contact with their parents. Deloy’s mom has been sending him some token amount of money every now and then. He doesn’t need it, but takes it to make her feel good.”
Oaklyn looked thoughtful. “I never thought before about what it’d be like to have such hateful parents. Our parents were all right. Not the most shining examples in the world, but nothing you could cry ‘abuse’ over. Just very upright religious folks. Your parents sound like the poster children for abuse.”
“My parents, along with almost every other Lost Boys’ parents. Every parent who threw their son to the wolves. This is why a lot of us learn to feel no emotion. I’m usually pretty emotionless, which is why I’m thinking maybe I can deal with Gideon’s work inside the compound. Yesterday I had to face this Parley Pipkin assbite who was one of the men in on the ass-kicking I received from Zelpha Pratt’s dad. Like it takes ten men to kick the ass of one teenager. I did all right, staring him in the fucking face.”
“You refrained from shooting him, anyway. That’s admirable.”
I hadn’t told anyone other than Gideon about Ladell Pratt yet. Deloy probably suspected that he was one of my tormentors, but was polite enough not to bring it up. “Fifteen years of controlling my emotions has taught me well. That’s why I like your scientific way of looking at things. We have more in common than you might suspect. Emotion is a defect in a perfectly logical machine.”
“No, no, not at all,” she cried, loud enough for Nana to hear. I moved closer to her, taking her by the upper arms to guide her into the shadows of the kitchen wall, farther from Nana’s bedroom. “Reason alone, without human emotion, has created more wretchedness than a zealot’s crusade.”
“You haven’t lived in Cornucopia.”
“Watching a Shakespeare performance informs us more about the nature of jealousy, how it can infiltrate a man’s life and ruin his marriage, than any textbook ever could. Harriet Beecher Stowe helped rouse society against slavery more powerfully than any spreadsheet. Dickens did more to prevent child abuse and institutional atrocity than any welfare society report.”
I had to agree with her, because literature had replaced emotion in my life. I could feel through works of art, music, and writing. I allowed myself to feel outrage and indignation on their behalf—maybe because they were “made up” works of art, and somewhat remotely removed from my own carefully guarded cage of feelings. “Well, yes. Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ is still played in about five hundred languages in ten billion elevators throughout the world. I’m sure it’s managed to soothe many a savage beast. The photo of the napalmed Vietnamese girl or Dorothea Lange’s Dust Bowl photos still resonate in people’s hearts. Oaklyn, you don’t need to convince me. I feel deeply through others’ creations. It’s just my real life where I have trouble knowing how to feel.”