He smiled nervously. “Isn’t that all in my file?”
“It tells me where you were born, where you went to high school, where you’ve lived. But those are just facts.” The man gestured extravagantly. “My file says I was born in San Francisco and earned a degree at Stanford. Those are facts, and true, but they mean very little. Millions of people live in that area and tens of thousands have gone to that school. If I said instead that, as a child, I lived in a small town on the coast and woke up smelling pine trees every morning, that tells you something no written record can. Do you see what I mean?”
“I guess so.” He considered. “Though there’s nothing much to tell. I was born on a farm in Iowa, learned how to fix tractors and turn the lights on when they quit, then got the heck out of there as soon as I could.”
“What did your family farm?”
“Boredom.”
Smile. “What did you sell?”
“Soy and corn, like everyone else.”
“Did you have any brothers or sisters?”
His jaw muscles bunched once, then released. “A sister.”
“Was she older or younger than you?”
“Older.”
“Much older or just a few years?”
“She was seven years older than me.”
“Most older sisters boss their younger brothers around. Did yours?”
He paused. “Yes.”
“Did you push back?”
“When I could. There were chores. And work to be done. She whipped me when I didn’t carry my share.”
“Did you run away or did you have to take it whenever she dished it out?”
“I ran when I saw it coming.” He laughed. “She was pretty good about hiding it until it was too late.”
“And where did you run?”
“It’s Iowa. There wasn’t no place to run to . I just picked a direction and went.”
“Out into the fields.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What did you do out there? How long did you wait before you went back?”
He tilted his head and smiled again. “You ever sat in a cornfield?”
The other man pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. “No, I haven’t.”
“If you had, you’d know there’s nothing to do. I sat and thought and I listened. When I figured I could sneak back into the house without getting a whipping, I went.”
“To what did you listen?”
He hesitated. “The wind.”
“Why the wind?”
“It was the only thing out there.”
“What did it sound like?”
He paused. “Like wind.”
“Was it the same every time?”
His eyes flicked around the room, following the shelves, counting the books. He was unaware his mouth moved as he did so. After a moment, he answered. “Not always. When it went through full cornstalks, it was different than later in the season.”
“After the corn had been harvested.”
“Yeah.”
“And what was different about it?”
“It hummed, a little.”
The man nodded. “Did you ever fight with your sister?”
“I told you, she whipped me.”
“How about when you got older? Bigger? Seven years isn’t much of a physical difference when you’re sixteen or seventeen.”
He shrugged. “I guess. Yeah.”
“Did you hit her when she wasn’t expecting it? The way she hit you?”
“Once or twice.”
“When you were bigger and started to hit back, did you hurt her when you hit her?”
“No.”
The man said nothing.
“I told you, I didn’t.”
“A lot of people would want to get back at someone who had punished them so much. Are you saying you never felt the urge to dish out some retribution?”
He gave another shrug, provided from an endless supply. “I made myself head out to the fields when I felt that come on real strong. When it got to be too much. When I got the jumps.”
“And you listened to the wind?”
“Sure, if it was blowing.”
“Do you still feel them?”
“Feel what?”
“The jumps.”
“Sometimes.”
“What do you do when you feel them?”
“I take a walk outside.”
“Does the wind sound different here?”
“Yes.”
“How is it different?”
He grinned. “Hell of a lot colder’s all I know.”
The man smiled back at him. “Winter is coming and it’ll be dark all day, every day. That makes taking a stroll pretty hard. What are you going to do then?”
“I guess I’ll have to walk it off in the halls. Work out in the gym, maybe.”
Another nod. The man reached a long arm back to his desk and flipped through a stack of papers at the edge of his reach. He found what he was looking for, then studied the paper for a few moments, flipping it back and forth to check something. “Are you on any medications?”
“A few.”
“And you brought those with you? Enough for nine months?”
“Sure. I don’t need them all the time.”
The man nodded, thoughtful, then smiled again and stood. “I think that’s all I need for now. But I’d like to talk to you next week, if you don’t mind.”
“Why? Do you think I’m crazy, Doc?”