08.04.08
Chapter 14
Chapman looked down at his hands curiously. He examined the flat little nails, the dimples over his knuckles, the generous layer of adipose tissue over the backs of the hands, the creamy, innocent luster of the skin. Perfectly normal hands for a seven-year-old boy.
“They look human. I am human!”
Then he pushed his fists into his eyes, half out of frustration, half to keep the tears from flowing. He looked up at the mirror that was bolted to his wall. He was a nice looking boy, brown hair, creamy skin, hazel eyes. He had a bowl hair cut. It was 1970 and that was the style. Geena, “Mom,” had cut his hair. He had never been to a hair salon. He had never been outside the compound. He thought everyone lived this way, and the carefully selected books and television programs he watched did not contradict that idea.
From his image in the mirror, he could see it was obvious he was crying. In a moment, someone might - might - come in and ask what was wrong. The mirror wasn’t a mirror, it was a window. Somehow, people could look through it and see what he was doing. He’d figured that out six months ago. However, he wasn’t watched all the time, he’d learned that too.
Chapman grabbed his knee and pretended he had hurt himself as he sat down at his desk. He needed an explanation for his tears if anyone came inside, and the real reason wouldn’t do at all. The looked in the mirror again, and his face was very red. The shame overwhelmed him again. He wasn’t like other boys. Now he knew why people looked at him funny. Now he knew why his life was so different from the lives described in the books Mr. Graber had given him. Now he knew why Geena was so angry when she found those books. Real kids went to a place called school where they played with other kids and one teacher taught twenty or more of them at one time. They didn’t live inside all the time, with no other children at all, and a series of tutors teaching them one-on-one.
And now he knew the truth about himself, the truth they had hidden. He decided he would never let anyone know that he knew. His face burned with shame again. He turned away from the mirror, went to the bookshelf opposite it and grabbed two dolls. He swung them in the air, pretending to play with them joyfully, and backed toward the mirror, always keeping his face away from it. Then he sunk down and with his back to the wall, directly underneath the mirror. No observer would be able to see him from that angle.
He took the clothes off the Barbie doll. “She’s going to have ’sex,’” he said, “just like in that book.” He was refering to the Where Did I Come From book Geena had just read him. He used his foot to drag his toy medicine bag toward him, careful that no one watching could see what he was doing. He pretended to give Barbie a shot. Then he lay her down motionless bounced the gorilla doll up and down on top of her.
“There, just like Becky and Uncle in his office.” Uncle didn’t know Chapman had gotten curious about the dropped ceiling in his bathroom one day. He didn’t know Chapman had been able to climb up into the plenum and look at other rooms. Uncle might have noticed a crack in the dropped ceiling of his office, but he never knew that Chapman had watched him so many times. And today, while Uncle was out, Chapman had dropped into the room and read a paper about himself, and learned who he was.
Chapman bounced the gorilla doll faster and faster, and then he stopped. He stood the gorilla doll up and moved it’s arm so that it slapped the motionless Barbie on her thigh. “‘Dumb bitch, you just never figure this out,’” he had the gorilla say.
Chapman started thinking about the paper he read again, the journal in Uncle’s office. He pulled knees up and leaned his forhead against them, crying. Suddenly he kicked the dolls away; he coudn’t stand to see them anymore. “That’s how babies are made. The lady and the monkey had a baby. And the baby was me.”
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Administrator said,
August 4, 2008 at 3:32 am
“Where did i come from” — i need to change that. that book came out in 2000. I am thinking of a book from the 1970’s - it had a similar title.
i should put in an earlier flashback where there is a joking conversation about chapman spending so much time in the bathroom, and about his questions about sex. he’s young, at 7, but the speakers will say he’s precocious because of ‘what he is.’ then they’ll get that book for him.
i also want to change the structure so that chapman is doing something, faber is doing something. more connectedness between what’s going on. an example - that michael prescott book where the security agent girl is protecting the news anchor lady from the psycho.