F. Wilson: Secret Histories

“Expert, shmexpert, I’l tel you what I know.”

Before leaving Weezy’s they’d reassembled the cube with the pyramid inside. Now she unfolded the bath towel she’d wrapped it in for transport, and

placed the cube on the counter.

Mr. Rosen adjusted his glasses for a closer look. “You bring me a box, a black box, and want to know what it is? In my expert opinion, it’s a black box.

Anything inside?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “That’s what we real y want to know about.” She stepped aside. “But it’l open only for Jack.”

Jack didn’t understand why Weezy and Eddie couldn’t do it. He’d shown them, they’d fol owed his directions perfectly, yet it refused to open for anyone

but him.

Which only increased the thing’s creep factor.

He did his thing to make it pop open, and then the three of them stood there at the counter, staring.

Final y Mr. Rosen reached for the pyramid. “May I?”

“Sure,” Jack said as Weezy gave a barely perceptible nod.

Mr. Rosen lifted it, but instead of examining it he set it aside and picked up the unfolded cube. He wiggled it in the air and watched as the six panels

flapped back and forth.

“Fascinating,” he said.

Jack was baffled. “Why?”

“No hinges. The squares appear to be made of thin sheets of some sort of material I’ve never seen. That’s strange enough, but they move back and

forth without any sort of hinge. Just … creases. Odd. Very, very odd.” “Tel me about it,” Jack said.

Mr. Rosen looked at them. “This I’d be wil ing to buy.”

Weezy gave her head an emphatic shake. “Uh-uh. It’s not for sale. Sorry.”

Mr. Rosen nodded as he put it down and picked up the pyramid. He turned it over and over in his hands, making little humming and grunting noises as

he held it up to the light and checked it with a magnifying glass. His sleeve slipped back revealing a string of numbers tattooed on his forearm. Jack had

seen them before but had hesitated to ask about them.

“Let me tel you, I’ve seen many strange objects in my day—you wouldn’t believe the things people bring in to try to sel me—but the likes of this I’ve

never seen. I couldn’t even guess what it is.”

“Oh,” Weezy said, her voice thick with frustration.

Jack hid his own disappointment. “Too bad.” Mr. Rosen had seemed to know a little bit about everything. “We were hoping—”

“But I know someone who might be able to help you.”

“Who?”

Jack half expected him to say, TheGreatandPowerfulOz! But instead …

“Professor Nakamura. He’s a maven of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.”

Weezy looked at Jack. “U of P? How are we going to get to Philadelphia?”

Weezy looked at Jack. “U of P? How are we going to get to Philadelphia?” “You don’t have to. He lives right here in town.”

Jack frowned. He thought he knew pretty much everyone in Johnson. “Never

heard of him.”

“Moved in about a year ago. Keeps to himself, I think, but he’s been in here a

few times. Interesting fel ow. His grandfather ran a laundry in San

Francisco but was driven out in the twenties by the Jap haters—al fired up by Wil

iam Randolph Hearst who hated Jews as wel —and fled back to Japan. Now his grandson has returned as an Ivy League professor. For al we know he

might be teaching the greatgrandchildren of the bigots who drove his

ancestors out. What sweet irony that would be.”

Jack didn’t remember any Oriental customers.

“Have I—?”

Mr. Rosen shook his head. “Hasn’t been in since you started. Col ects Carnival

Glass, of al things.”

“What’s Carnival Glass?”

“Iridescent kitsch is what it is. But he loves it. Bought every piece I had last

spring.”

That explained why Jack had never seen any—he hadn’t started here until late

June.

Mr. Rosen was fishing under the counter. “He left his number to cal as soon as

any new items came in.” Final y he came up with a card. “Here it is. Let me give it a try. I got the impression his schedule at the university isn’t too heavy, so who knows? You may get lucky.”

4

They didn’t. Professor Nakamura wasn’t home but Mr. Rosen left a message to cal him back. Jack and Weezy headed back to her place. He didn’t have

long before he was due at work.

“What do we do now?” he said as they coasted along Quakerton Road.

“Wait and see if this Professor Nakamura can help us, I guess.”

“And if he can’t?”

Weezy shrugged. “I don’t know. Don’t you wish the TV had a channel where you could, say, ask a question and it would search every library in the world

and pop the answer onto the screen? Wouldn’t that be great?”

“Yeah.” Then he thought about it a little more. “Or maybe not so great. You’d have to make TVs two-way before that could happen. I mean, it’s just oneway now—we can watch it and that’s that. But if it became two-way … it might start watching us.”

Weezy looked at him and smiled, something she didn’t do often enough. “And you cal me paranoid?”

“Hey, less than five months til Big Brother starts watching.”

NineteenEighty-Four was on his high school summer reading list and he’d found it majorly disturbing.

“Yeah, but—” She braked and pointed. “Aw, no!”

Jack looked and saw two guys pushing around a third near the rickety one-lane bridge over Quaker Lake. The pushers were Teddy Bishop and a blond

guy Jack didn’t recognize. Teddy, with long greasy hair and a blubbery body, was sort of the town bul y. His father was a lawyer and that seemed to make

Teddy feel he could get away with anything.

The beard and olive-drab fatigue jacket on the guy getting pushed around identified him as the town’s only Vietnam vet, Walter Erskine—or, as he was

more commonly known, Weird Walt. It looked like Teddy and his friend were trying to grab the brown paper grocery bag Walt had clutched against his

chest.

Before Jack knew it, Weezy was pedaling toward the scene, yel ing, “Hey! Stop that!”

Jack wasn’t surprised. Though young enough to be his daughter, Weezy had a thing for Walt. If she met him on the street she’d walk with him;

sometimes they’d sit on one of the benches down by the lake and talk—about what, Jack had no idea.

No use trying to stop her, so he fol owed. Couldn’t let her face those two creeps alone. He watched her jump off her bike and quickly set the kickstand

—Walt or no Walt, she wasn’t going to let that cube fal . Then she ran over, stepped in front of Teddy, and pushed him back. Not that she had much effect.

Teddy was an ox. But Weezy was fearless.

“Leave him alone!”

“Yeah, lay off!” Walt said, raising a gloved hand. He always wore gloves.

Walt had a hippieish look with a gray-streaked beard and long, dark hair. His voice sounded a little slurred. No surprise there. Jack didn’t know of

anyone who’d ever seen him completely sober.

Teddy laughed. “Look at this! Weird Weezy and Weird Walt together. How about that?”

Jack lay his bike on the grass and looked around. Last time Mom had taken him for a checkup he’d been five-five and one-hundred-two pounds. Teddy

had two years, two inches, and maybe fifty lardy pounds over him. He’d need an equalizer. He looked for a weapon, a rock, maybe, but found nothing.

Swel .

He approached the group empty-handed.

“What do you want with him?” Weezy was saying. “He’s not bothering you!”

“We just think he should share some of his hooch. We ain’t greedy. We don’t want it al , just a little. So get outta the way.”