Chapter 7

I found my way to the bus stop. The bus, when it came, was less crowded since the worst of rush hour was over. Stan’s information was swirling around in my mind like a whirlwind, and I almost missed my stop.

The family was sitting down to dinner when I walked in. “We were wondering where you were. Everything go okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, “just first day training, trying to keep track of everything. It ran a little late. Shouldn’t be like that from now on.”

They asked questions about what I’d be doing, what my boss was like, and I gave them the highlights without mentioning the contents of the catalog. I think that was going to come up at some point, but better if it’s later.

Mindy started complaining about finals and how much she had to remember and how unfair it was. My mother started to say something, but clamped her mouth shut, apparently choosing which battles she was going to take on. This one may be a lost cause, but maybe I’ll give Mindy a booster dose of ‘learning is fun’. She clearly needed one.

I went up to my room and lay on the bed, my hand under my head. I wasn’t so much tired as needing to minimize external stimuli so I could think.

I felt a cautious sense of relief, that I hadn’t been found out by some agency with an agenda, if I were to take Stan’s story at face value. And as far as I knew, I had left him with the impression that I was an unwitting participant in Beckham’s experiment, that I had somehow been inadvertently tainted with the chemical but was without any known hidden skills.

Though I had been dumbstruck when I sat down, almost speechless, once he started telling his story I had found his link and stepped into his epicenter. What’s there is what a person is thinking about, preparing to speak, right now. I had detected no sense of deception or duplicity behind what he was telling me. It seemed that he was relating a true story that he remembered.

But maybe that was his talent, the ability to lie plausibly. However, I thought I would be able to detect that, so for the moment I would give him the benefit of a doubt.

And I had tried to get into Canary’s head, and had a very difficult time doing so. The thread was so tenuous, like a filament of spider web, that I almost couldn’t follow it back to his epicenter.

When I did get there, I found almost nothing, like an empty room, with occasional invisible things that would brush my cheeks. There was nothing there to see. It was a little scary, because epicenters were almost always cluttered, filled with the things that were important to a person.

It would be interesting to have Stan list the kinds of talents he’d found in the folks he’d had contact with. He only listed three, but I was sure there were more.

I should have asked Stan if the lab had published anything. If I could find an article, a preprint, that might give me some clues to what changes had happened to my head. But I thought I knew the answer: Reports only to the brass, their eyes only.

But at least I now had some answers to what had happened to me. Well, more of an educated guess, since I couldn’t prove definitively that the cans at Parker’s Pond had come from Wanamaker Labs. Still, the effects it had induced in me were similar to the ones that Beckham had been trying to achieve.

I was his biggest success story and he could never know about it! If he thought his work had been successful he’d be angling to restart the project. And he’d have to show proof, namely me. My life would never be the same.

I couldn’t deduce any more to the story without more information, and I thought it would be prudent to stay away from Stan and Canary for the moment. I didn’t think they were malicious, just that I preferred to keep myself to myself as much as possible. The fewer people who knew what I could do, the less likely I was to be exposed, inadvertently or intentionally.

With that, I put it out of my head and read a book for fun, something I hadn’t done in months. Then I went to bed.

A quick breakfast the next morning, then I hopped the bus to the mall. Ted was working on the books when I walked in.

“Didn’t scare you off, huh? Okay, there’s order forms here. Why don’t you get started? We’ll go ship them together so you can see how it’s done. Lemme know when you’re done.”

“You want to check the boxes before I seal them?”

“No, I think you’ve got it. Bring the order forms back when you’re finished.”

It took me maybe ninety minutes to gather everything, then another hour or so to pack them up. I thought he’d gotten this pared down to a pretty efficient system.

Today’s shipment was the usual collection of odd gift and joke items. I started to fantasize about the people who ordered them and what their houses looked like. One of today’s orders included a pink teddy, size XL, and a dildo, black, 10” (batteries not included). I hoped they have a nice weekend.

I weighed the boxes, jotting down the numbers on the cartons, stacked everything on a cart, and pushed it toward the front.

“Here’s the order forms, Ted. The boxes are here, ready for the postage meter.”

Ted skimmed through the orders, noting that everything was checked off correctly. “Okay, read ‘em off to me.”

I read, he printed, I slapped the postage on the boxes. In a few minutes we were done.

“Well, that’s a lot faster than it usually goes. There’s something to be said for assembly lines. You ready to visit our friendly neighborhood post office?”

He locked the front and put a sign in the door, Back in 30 Minutes. We loaded the boxes in the van and I made a mental note of his route to the post office. There was a small parking lot with a couple of open spaces.

“This is usually packed solid around lunchtime. Better to get here early. Help me with this stuff.”

He had a couple of handcarts in the van and we fit most of the boxes on one, and the remaining on the other. He led me in through the door by the parking lot and we got in line, which moved fairly quickly.

When we got to the front, he said, “Morning, Johnny. This here is Carter, he’s helping me out at the store, I’m showing him the ropes. You’ll be seeing more of him.”

Johnny nodded at me, then started weighing the packages as Ted handed them over, confirming the weights. Since they required no additional handling, we were done fast.

Ted waved goodbye and we returned to the van and stowed the handcarts. “That’s probably the easiest part of the shipping process, right there. Every so often I will have misread a weight and put on the wrong postage. If that happens while you’re doing this, just pay it, get the receipt and I’ll reimburse you. It won’t be much extra.”

In ten minutes we were back at the store and inside. He flipped the sign, unlocked the front door and went back behind the counter.

“I brought my lunch today, Carter, so I’ll stay here. If you want to get lunch, go ahead. It’s a little early, but you’ll beat the rush.”

That didn’t sound like a bad idea, so I went. It was starting to cloud over, so maybe some rain on the way, I’ll eat inside.

I stopped at the bookstore, where I saw Karen in conference with two clerks. She noticed me and shook her head. I mimicked tears running down my face and she smiled, then returned to her conversation.

Today it was chicken salad on whole wheat, with a pickle and iced tea. I sat on a bench and watched the crowd while I ate. I didn’t notice either Canary or Stan.

Back in the store, Ted was again on the phone so I went to the back. I found where I’d left off yesterday and tried to continue organizing the shelving. It really wasn’t that bad, but some things had gotten pushed aside or to the back. Better to have them in some kind of order.

When I’d finished the next-to-last bay all that was left was the room with the oddball stuff, too big or too awkward to fit on a shelf. I couldn’t really do anything with it, so I just looked each item up in the catalog and read the description so I’d recognize it, get it in my head.

With that done I had nothing else to do. What the hell am I going to do with the rest of my summer, sit in my chair and twiddle my thumbs? Do crossword puzzles? Instead, I picked up the catalog and continued browsing.

I found where I’d left off, the adult party board games, and started there. Truth or dare game with prepackaged questions and dares (rated 18+). Naked twister game. If you lose a turn, you lose an item of clothing. More like that.

On the next page I found a machine with a reciprocating arm onto which one could attach a variety of different dildos (sold separately). Adjustable angles and a control box to make it move slower or faster. A fucking machine! I looked at the price and shook my head. Buyers would need some serious disposable income.

Then it got tamer, if still weird, again. Slip-on slippers with fabric penises sewn on. Flavored lube. Bathrobes with World’s Sexiest (Wife/Girlfriend/Hubby/Sugar Daddy/Slut) imprinted. Underwear with the same. Tee-shirts with a single word or phrase on the front: Titties. Stop Staring. Yes, They’re Real.

I thought back to when I worked as a summer translator for a local college sociology professor, who happened to be researching attitudes on immigration from both sides. This was an un-mined project in the making: Who buys this stuff and why? Do they wear it in public? Are they making a statement about their beliefs?

Ted was calling me, so I put the catalog down and went next door. “Hey,” he said, “you can probably pick these orders and box them so they’ll be ready to ship in the morning. Did you finish with that re-org you were doing?”

“Yeah, I did, and now I’m kinda at loose ends here. I don’t know if things get busier at different times, but I’m feeling like I’m going to be underutilized. Once the picking’s done, there’s really not that much to do. I feel a little guilty.”

“Some days are going to be like that. It seems to pick up just before the various holidays and long weekends, people planning parties, like that, and there are down times, too. But if you weren’t here, then I’d still be running around even in the slow times, because there’s maybe just a bit too much for one person to do.

“At least with you here I can get the books in order, which I couldn’t do before because I was running around too much. So amuse yourself as you can. I don’t mind paying you so I can free up some time for other things.”

“Okay, but I think I’m going to have to find something to occupy my time. Maybe I could straighten up in here? There’s not much order to how things are laid out.”

“Maybe. I’ll think about it. I kinda know where things are here, and it’s not really a showroom, after all.”

He passed me the order slips and I went off to fill them. That was another 45 minutes occupied. I twiddled my thumbs and tried to remember the lyrics to the popular TV show theme songs from when I was a kid.

And so the days passed, mornings busy, afternoons mostly aimless. I’d exulted at my good fortune at finding such an easy, decently-paying job, and air-conditioned to boot, but now I was wondering if I could last the summer and still retain my sanity.

By Friday, it was all I could do to keep from running up and down the corridor just to keep myself entertained. I had brought in a book from home, but finished it yesterday. Note to self: More books.

At least I had dinner with Karen to look forward to. I found I was checking my watch every five minutes or so. Around 4:30 Ted poked his head in and said, “Not much left to do. Why don’t you take off? I’ll see you Monday. Have a great weekend.”

I told him thanks, and hoped I didn’t appear to be hurrying out, which I was. I hopped on the bus and was home quickly. Everyone was out, so I took a quick shower and changed my clothes. It was too early to go to Karen’s but I could read for awhile.

I looked at the book and thought, I hadn’t realized it till now but Mindy doesn’t really read for pleasure, does she? I was surprised by this observation, considering that we’d lived in the same house for her whole life. It was only now that it had occurred to me.

Maybe that’s part of her problem with academics. She doesn’t connect reading with enjoyment, fun, or stimulation, much less edification. She connects it only with things she is forced to do for school. “Class, read pages 48-56 in the text, and we’ll have a quiz on Monday.” That’s one way to kill the fun of reading.

She wasn’t stupid. I’d heard her reason things through pretty well on numerous occasions. She just got so much more enjoyment from interacting with her friends, flirting with boys, going to parties. She was much more social than I had been, and that was a fundamental difference in our personalities.

Still, intelligence and congeniality were not mutually exclusive. She could do with more of the former, at least in the sense of taking to studying as if it weren’t a prison sentence. She had the smarts, she just had to apply it.

It’s a shame I couldn’t pass on to her that ‘brain sponge’ tool I’d come up with at the end of last semester that allowed me to block out all external stimuli except the text I was trying to absorb. That had worked out pretty well.

I chuckled to myself, imagining how she’d react the first time she got her exam results back. She’d probably faint dead away, sure that it was an error, that it was someone else’s exam she’d got back by mistake.

I amused myself with that image for a short while, then when I tried to go back to my book found that I couldn’t shake it. Not the ‘fainting dead away’ part, the part where I tried to pass on that named image to her.

I was puzzled why I was having difficulty shaking this. It was like my mind was playing with it, not yet ready to give it up. I’d learned enough of how my mind worked that I just let it go off on its own for awhile.

It took about five minutes or so before I latched on to why it was so tenacious. I had said I wished that I could give her that named image, then declared that it was not possible. My subconscious mind had rejected that conclusion, without my conscious mind knowing why.

I did that mental slap to remind myself not to make assumptions. I had to rethink this. I had spent the better part of the past several years linkcasting images to various people, which their own minds would interpret and put into action.

True, most of them were visual metaphors for states of arousal or types of orgasms. But they were all images implementing some reaction or desired behavior, some quite complex. There were variations in how each mind interpreted them, but they all resulted in much the same effect.